


Best Served Cold

by Ywain Penbrydd (penbrydd)



Series: Vexation of Spirit [20]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Shadow Unit, The Lone Gunmen (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Disembowelment, Hypothermia, M/M, Police Misconduct, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reid is totally acting out albeit with some small amount of restraint, Sympathetic Villain (sort of), Unlikeable Victims, questionable decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 58,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26204665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penbrydd/pseuds/Ywain%20Penbrydd
Summary: While Villette deals with broken ribs, and Byers tries to figure out how to make space in his plans for Bedlam's top man, Reid gets called away on a case. Four victims have been found disembowelled in cold docks at the port of Camden, with no apparent similarities aside from the method of death. The lead detective on the case is not fond of the idea of having feds on his patch, and casually obstructs their investigation. Reid is not his usual tactful self after four attempts on his life in as many weeks.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Richard "Ringo" Langly/Spencer Reid/Chaz Villette
Series: Vexation of Spirit [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1058681
Comments: 120
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

"Where's Reid?" Prentiss glanced around the jet trying to spot his bag, at least, if not him. "He's never late."  
  
"He had to get his car, remember?" JJ had the case file open on her tablet, picking out the overlap in the four murders, both things that were noted in the initial message and things that weren't. "They had to rush Villette to the hospital, and Spencer didn't have time to get his car, before he came to work."  
  
Prentiss sighed and shook her head. It was an ACTF case, so she knew better than to ask too much. JJ wouldn't know, and Reid wouldn't tell her, when he finally got there. "I hope Villette's all right."  
  
"Todd says he's not, but he will be. Broken ribs, but his lungs are okay. I heard he got shot in the chest with a large-calibre round, and the vest is the only reason he's still alive, but I heard it from Todd, so who knows." JJ enlarged a photo and tipped her tablet, trying to figure out what she was seeing.  
  
"Villette's fine." Reid's voice preceded the rest of him by a split second. "I just had him on the phone, on my way here. He's surprisingly upright for the number of ribs he's had broken."  
  
"This from the guy who tried to come to work with a spine injury," Rossi teased, not looking up from the case file.  
  
"That wasn't interfering with my breathing," Reid argued, stowing his bag and taking his usual seat, before he changed the subject. "I'm assuming we don't know any more than we did half an hour ago?"  
  
"Not yet." JJ shook her head. "Wait until we're in the air."  
  
"So, I saw on the news that Single Bullet's new homes for the homeless project got vandalised this week. Isn't that where you were staying for that case?" Simmons asked, looking up from his tablet as the engines warmed up. "That wasn't vandals, I'm guessing?"  
  
"That was where I was staying, and that had nothing to do with vandals, but 'vandalised' is putting what happened to the lobby lightly. I'm still not sure what kind of projectiles were used in there, but I'm glad Villette's the only one of us who got hit by one. I don't think I'd have been as lucky, and Frank..." Reid rubbed his arm just to have something to do with his hand. "The damage is extensive, but the responsible party has been taken into custody."  
  
"Heard you shot him," Alvez said, eyes turning up just enough to watch Reid without being obvious.  
  
"I did. Non-fatally and very effectively." Reid slid the tablet out of his bag as they took off, hoping to close the subject. He hadn't had the time to run off a paper copy and get his car, so he'd suffer through the electronic copy for now. Langly had made that at least... bearable. Once he was back in the office, he thought he'd see if there was a way to make the screen dark there, too. Not that he'd gained a desire to embrace the constant connection of the technological era, but at least the parts he had to deal with on a daily basis could be somewhat less distasteful.  
  
"You keep that up, Rossi's going to start calling you 'Kneecaps'," Alvez teased, no longer subtle as he watched Reid.  
  
Rossi pointed the corner of a folder at him. "Just because I'm Italian--"  
  
" _Anyway_ , four victims, cold storage, suspension and disembowelment?" Reid raised his voice just enough to draw all eyes to him. "And in Camden, New Jersey, of all unfortunate places. Do you know it used to be a major city? Camden was a bustling factory and port town until the nineteen sixties. Everyone started moving their factories elsewhere in the fifties, and the population followed the jobs. By the eighties, the ethnic balance in the city had shifted dramatically, after Cherry Hill became popular with upper-middle class white families. To this day, there's a tremendous amount of resentment along racial and economic lines, and given the location -- warehouses at what was one of the busiest ports in the US for about a hundred years -- I'd take a look at economic connections, first."  
  
Prentiss slid her laptop onto the table in front of her, as the plane levelled out. "Garcia? You hear him?"  
  
"Yep! Annnd, there's not really a connection between the victims that way. Not... really. Not all of them are in the same tax bracket, though they are all making above-average wages for the area. They're not all working for the same company, although two of them are working for Levonel Yards and have been for pretty much ever. One worked for Campbell's, in something about production efficiency, and the last one worked for a local law firm, Hanneman & Astor. They don't all live in the same part of town. They're not all the same ethnicity. You know there has to be an overlap somewhere, but I'm just not seeing it at a glance, here. Whoever's doing this is either picking people who are in the right place at the wrong time or there's something I haven't turned up yet."  
  
"Wasn't Levonel Yards that defence contractor that was all over the news about ten years ago?" Simmons asked, getting up for coffee. "Something about knowing their armour plates were bad before they shipped them overseas?"  
  
JJ nodded. "I remember hearing about that. They're based in Camden?"  
  
"They sure are." Garcia hummed quietly. "And that is exactly who they are. They're one of the companies that got into boatloads of trouble for selling bunk parts to the Department of Defence. But, only two of our victims were working there, so that is probably not a motive. I'll keep digging."  
  
"And Campbell's is the soup company, right?" Rossi asked. "We're not talking about a different Campbell's are we?"  
  
"Campbell's Soup has been a major employer in Camden for almost a hundred and thirty years," Reid pointed out, "so, yes, it's _that_ Campbell's."  
  
"If they all worked for Campbell's I'd think somebody was pissed off about the change in the cream of mushroom recipe. I could see that leading to disembowelment," Rossi joked, shaking his head.  
  
"I didn't know you cooked with mushroom soup. I thought that was more of a Midwestern thing." Reid raised his eyebrows and looked straight at Rossi, going on without the slightest shift in tone. "What kind of lawyers are Hanneman & Astor?"  
  
"Exclusively corporate law. Mergers, anti-trust cases, that kind of thing," Garcia answered.  
  
"Any chance they've done work for the other two firms? Maybe a legal case that links a soup maker, a defence contractor, and a law office?" Reid was reaching, and he knew it, but there had to be something that linked these four people.  
  
"Three men and one woman," Lewis observed, as Simmons handed her a glass of orange juice. "Two white, one hispanic, and one black. Four different neighbourhoods. But, all of them missing less than twenty-four hours, when they were found."  
  
"And all of them already dead, no matter how long they'd been missing," Reid observed. "Cause of death is actually probably _hypothermia_ , rather than exsanguination or other side-effects of disembowelment. They froze to death because there was nothing holding the heat in. Evisceration is otherwise an extremely slow death, with reports of those lacking far more than just intestines surviving ten to twelve hours without medical intervention. With just disembowelment, death _can_ take days, and is more likely to result from infection or secondary damage to nearby blood vessels."  
  
"I dunno, are we _sure_ they didn't bleed to death?" Simmons asked, looking at a photo of the floor under one of the bodies. "That's not a small pool of blood."  
  
Reid shook his head. "Most of that is intestine. Whoever did this consistently missed the larger abdominal blood vessels, which is likely intentional. The UnSub wants them to suffer. Hypothermia is likely to accelerate the death, but not as much as exsanguination."  
  
"Doesn't... Doesn't being cold usually keep people from dying?" Garcia asked, having given up on not listening to this part of the conversation. "It's supposed to slow the body down, right? Breathe slower, heart slows down, lose less blood?"  
  
"Normally, yes, but in the case of a gaping, empty abdominal wound in a refrigerated unit, and with the way the victims are bound, the core temperature would've dropped much too suddenly and much too far. I'm sure the _tissue_ is in excellent shape, though."  
  
Lewis looked up, catching the horror on Garcia's face. "They wouldn't have been conscious for long. Disembowelment probably sent them into shock almost immediately and hypothermia causes unconsciousness. It wouldn't have been a quick death, but they probably weren't aware of much of it."  
  
"In other words, whatever the intention, they didn't suffer as much as they could have," Rossi observed, "and the question is whether that's intentional. Does the UnSub expect they'll survive longer in the cold? Is this a disappointment, or is the cold more important than the suffering? Or is faster than just disembowelment, but slower than exsanguination actually the point, here?"  
  
"Isn't disembowelment a pretty popular historical torture?" JJ asked, with a glance at Reid. "Or is that just Hollywood?"  
  
"Disembowelment shows up in numerous places throughout history. Discounting suicide by disembowelment, like seppuku among samurai or the death of Cato the Younger, disembowelment was used as capital punishment for everything from peeling trees to high treason, in Western Europe. More recently, the Legionnaires' rebellion in Bucharest, during the Second World War, involved the disembowelment of over a hundred people, and during the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong were said to have disembowelled civilians to intimidate villages into cooperating with them." Reid shook his head again and shrugged. "There's no one type of crime associated with a punishment of disembowelment, and it's sufficiently widespread that it can't be linked to a particular culture, like certain types of cartel executions can be."  
  
"Okay, but this isn't just disembowelment," JJ reminded him. "It's suspension and disembowelment, combined with the cold."  
  
"They're dressed," Prentiss pointed out. "Not for the temperature they were found in, but all of them are dressed for work or a decent restaurant, and their shoes are still on, but not their coats."  
  
Reid nodded, flipping through the images. "They were probably abducted from inside a building they meant to spend a significant amount of time in. You don't take your coat off to go to the grocery store or pick up a to-go order, but you do if you're at work, home, or a sit-down restaurant. Are we sure they left work? If we can find the coats, we may be able to figure out where they were taken from."  
  
"Credit card information should be in my hands shortly," Garcia assured them. "If any of the victims were at restaurants or movies, the nights they disappeared, I will know it in just a moment!"  
  
"We'll ask the families about what outerwear the victims had," Prentiss decided, making a note. "And then we can ask around the last places they were seen, to see if anyone found any unclaimed coats that match."  
  
"Some people leave their coat in the car, if they got a good parking space." Alvez looked around "It's March. The weather's not horrible."  
  
"That's just you, Alvez," Simmons insisted. "Sane people put their jackets on when they leave the house and take them off _inside_."  
  
"We'll check the cars, anyway, once we find them," Prentiss decided, adding to the note. "Nothing on suspension and disembowelment combined?" She turned a hopeful eye on Reid.  
  
"Not off the top of my head, but ask me that again in a few hours." He yawned, covering his mouth with one hand. "I need more coffee first."  
  
"You need a nap," Alvez ventured stretching out a leg to nudge his ankle. "You look like shit, man."  
  
"I almost got murdered three times in as many weeks, and I spent a lot of last night sitting with Agent Villette, and none of it sleeping. I'm fine. I just need another cup of coffee and maybe a bagel."  
  
"Three times in three weeks. Is that including the brand new scar on your arm?" Rossi pronounced each word clearly, raising his eyebrows at Reid.  
  
"No, but I think that might make it four times in a month." Reid gave him a brittle smile on the way to get more coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back! Not sure if I'm going to be able to hold a Sunday/Wednesday update schedule (according to US timezones) for this one, because things are a little nuts, here, but expect Sundays, at least!
> 
> Also, this fic is for mah boi Dev, who when I asked about murder in New Jersey, requested disembowelment in the cold docks in Camden. :D


	2. Chapter 2

JJ watched the room shift as they came in, the few scattered twos and threes drawing closer, eyeing them, and the volume of conversation dropped a couple of notches, from relatively quiet to almost inaudible. And none of the looks they got were friendly.  
  
Their guide leaned into an office, knocking on the open door. "Lieutenant? The feds are here."  
  
"Good! Send them in!" a voice announced, and their guide stepped back and waved them in.  
  
The first thing that struck Reid was that the room felt new. Most of the building felt strangely sterile, and not in a bad way. This wasn't the same level of settled as so many police stations he'd been in -- and it wasn't that it was a new building, it was just that it was cleaner, somehow. Like it had missed out on years of smoke and vomit stains getting painted over. That was it. The paint looked like it had been applied properly, even if it wasn't recent, and this part of the building hadn't taken the same sort of abuse that other parts probably had. Definitely not this office.  
  
"Sanderson," the man said as he stood up holding out a hand to whoever would take it first. "It's good to have you here, though my detectives are a little less than thrilled, if I'm honest. We've been through a difficult few years, here, and my team wants to show they're up to the task. But, this is obviously serial, and it's happening fast, and I'd rather have a professional in. The people who deal with this kind of murder, so we can get back to the rest of them."  
  
JJ shook Sanderson's hand. "I'm Agent Jareau, and it's always good to work with someone who's not afraid to ask for help, but reluctant detectives could be a problem. Hopefully, once we reassure them we're here to support them and not take the case for ourselves, they'll feel a little better about it. Have they worked with federal agents before?"  
  
"We've had the DEA in and out, and that's... always difficult. But, I'm hoping this runs smoother." Sanderson looked up and waved to someone standing outside the room. "Natale! Come in and let me introduce you to these agents from the BAU. They'll help you out with those killings down on the docks."  
  
"We don't need feds," Natale said, holding up a hand and shaking his head as he passed through the back of the BAU team, into the office. "We've got everything under control. But, if you want to have some coffee and watch us work, it's your dollar. You're just here because it's written into the budget bill that we _have to_ call you for serials. It's probably some drug thing. I've got Lorenzo picking through those files to see if we get any matches.  
  
"No hits on methodology," Alvez volunteered, and Natale looked surprised. "Not close _enough_. There's some disembowelments with the Mexican gangs, but not like this."  
  
"Disembowelment and evisceration are much more popular than you'd think, given the time to death and the inevitable mess," Reid cut in, hands in his pockets as he stood awkwardly in the door. "So, it's definitely a death connected to punishment and retribution. It's a price paid for a perceived evil."  
  
"This guy knows." Natale nodded and pointed across himself to Reid. "We think it's something about shipping, and that's why it's on the docks. Maybe a sign about getting frozen out of a deal? But, with these yuppie vics, it's hard to tell what they were into. They're hiding money, they're probably hiding ownership and investments, it's a mess. But, you can't think because they've got money they're not up to shady shit. They fucked with the wrong people, and they paid for it."  
  
"If you're right, the question is whether they stood up to those people like a granny with a baseball bat, or if they met corruption with further corruption." Rossi lifted a shoulder. "But, we'll find out. That's what we're here to do. And the faster we do it, the faster we're out of your hair."  
  
Natale appealed to Sanderson, looking around the feds between him and the desk. "It's still my case, and I don't need a bunch of pencil-necked desk-chair cowboys telling me how to run it!"  
  
"Ange, if you want us all to have jobs next year, take the extra hands. It's a condition of the budget, and you know it."  
  
Natale rolled his eyes to heaven. "Fine. They teach you how to knock on doors in fed school?"  
  
Reid raised his eyebrows at JJ, who shook her head.  
  
"Not us, this time. We're good, but not here."  
  
Prentiss nodded encouragingly. "Who goes out?"  
  
"Lewis and Alvez." JJ smiled. "Look at the neighbourhood. If they dress down just a little, they're not going to give off the FBI vibe the instant they get out of the car. If we need the Washington feel later, that's you and Rossi. Reid and I would be invisible in the suburbs, but not here."  
  
"Well, we're not exactly going to be invisible, but we'll look a little less like Mormons or a charity drive," Alvez teased.  
  
Reid looked down at himself. "I do not look like a Mormon missionary."  
  
"Yes, you do," Natale assured him, clapping him firmly on the shoulder and ignoring the way Reid subtly recoiled from the contact. "How are you with paperwork, pencil-neck?"  
  
"I think that depends on what you want me to do with it. Am I reading it, writing it, or folding origami?" Reid stepped back, standing up straighter in that way Villette did, sometimes, that way that made him look a lot taller and a lot more dangerous. "I can do any two of those at once, but all three is going to slow me down."  
  
Prentiss shot him a warning look.  
  
"And if you're looking for someone to go through digital files, we already have someone working on that. What do you need to know?"  
  
"Oh, I was just looking for a secretary to type my reports." Natale smirked and swept out of the room.  
  
"I can't reassign the case," Sanderson said, quietly. "I don't have enough people. And if I take him off it, I'm going to have to sit him out a few days, and _I don't have enough people_. He's a good cop. He wouldn't still be working here, if he wasn't. But, the DEA made some questionable decisions, on that last case, and Natale got burned. Two of his CIs got killed, and he ended up getting shot in the leg."  
  
Rossi nodded. "That's rough. So, he doesn't like federal agents, now, because of this, but he winds up holding a case we have to be involved in."  
  
"We were going to end up doing the legwork anyway, Dave. We might as well give him that." Prentiss shrugged. "Like Lieutenant Sanderson says, there just aren't enough people. Which means we're doing most of the heavy lifting, no matter what Detective Natale thinks of it, because he can't spare the bodies to do it any other way."  
  
"If he refuses to provide you with information, you come see me. I'll make sure you have everything you need," Sanderson promised.

* * *

"Cause of death on all of them is technically stress-induced heart failure," the medical examiner explained, uncovering the most recent of the victims. "Disembowelment and partial evisceration took place through a single slice down the abdomen. Bleeding would have been substantial, as seen in the photos, but with the major blood vessels behind the intestines, the shallow slice needed to part the abdominal wall didn't do enough damage to cause exsanguination. Had Mr Williams been treated, within the first couple of hours, there's a pretty good chance he'd have survived. The intestines were undamaged. The first two, though, Contreras and Montrose? They looked like their intestines had torn while being pulled out, and other organs were damaged and removed in the process. I have a kidney from each of them, one spleen, both bladders. They probably wouldn't have made it, with the combination of damage and sepsis. Anderson could've gone either way. Damage to his intestines happened outside the body, and aside from the bladder, most of the organs were left in."  
  
Reid examined the slice along the abdominal wall. "You cut to the side of it, not to disrupt the existing slice, even though it was exactly where you would normally have cut." He tipped his head and offered a faint quarter of a smile. "Thank you."  
  
"I'm not an idiot," the medical examiner huffed. "And before you ask me, a very sharp straight-bladed knife, bottom to top. I'm not sure how large of a knife, because the incision is intentionally shallow, but the angle makes it look like a relatively sturdy, thick blade. These people were definitely hung up before they were gutted, because otherwise those cuts wouldn't be that straight."  
  
"And they didn't strip, if I'm judging the photos correctly."  
  
The medical examiner nodded. "Remains of the clothing were still attached to the body at the wrists and ankles. Probably not worth the trouble it would be to cut it free, once they were in that position."  
  
"Has there been any sign of sedatives or anything else that would render these people more compliant or even unconscious?" JJ asked, looking at the hands and arms. "This victim doesn't look like he fought back at all, and there's not much in the way of defensive injuries recorded for the others."  
  
"Well, they weren't hit over the head," the medical examiner drawled. "I can tell you that, for certain. But, the lab's backed up two weeks, and if there is anything, depending on what it is..." She shrugged. "I have no idea when we'll be sure if any drugs were used."  
  
"But, there's no needlemarks? No consistent cuts in easy-to-reach places?" Reid's eyes lifted from the body.  
  
"The injuries that are anything like the same between all of them are the obvious one and the chafing from the zip cuffs. Just the usual assortment of hangnails, paper cuts, and foot blisters." The medical examiner shook her head. "I know what you're hoping for, Agent, but it's not there."  
  
"On the contrary." Reid smiled. "This tells us the victims weren't afraid of their attacker until much too late. For whatever reason, the UnSub was someone they thought they could trust. Do you have stomach contents?"  
  
The medical examiner stared at him. "Sort of. I'm hesitant to judge how recently they'd eaten in terms of time of death, because most of the stomach contents were found outside the body. Combination of vomiting and the pretty obvious digestive failure."  
  
"But, they had eaten? All of them?"  
  
"If I judge to time of vomiting, which was probably around when the first incision was made -- that's probably the last opportunity to get enough pressure to vomit -- I'd say they'd all eaten fairly shortly before that. An hour or two not more than four, at a guess. Williams last ate something involving breaded chicken cutlets and probably a salad. There's probably a sauce in there, but I can't tell what it is. I do recognise breading, chicken, hardboiled egg, and uncooked leafy greens."  
  
"We should see if Garcia got those credit card receipts, yet." JJ eyed Reid across the body between them. "There's a very narrow window in which they could've disappeared, and I think we can narrow it down even further."  
  
"We might find _witnesses_ , if their last meals were in restaurants," Reid pointed out. "People would have seen the victims there, and _may_ have seen if they left with someone, or met someone on the street outside."  
  
"You and me, or Alvez and Lewis?"  
  
"I'm sure you and I can handle the _restaurants_ , but we have to wait for Garcia to tell us which ones."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, guys, it's going to be Sunday only for a couple of weeks. My allergies are murdering me.


	3. Chapter 3

They'd gotten a small office, one that belonged to a lieutenant on medical leave, and it was barely large enough for the whole team to stand in. Still, Simmons seemed to have created more space by turning the desk against the wall and pushing a whiteboard directly in front of the window that looked out over the bullpen. He'd taped paper over the bookcases and hung victim photos and autopsy reports on that, carefully marking out known information with a Sharpie. If he leaned too hard, he'd punch through the paper and mark the books, which was the last thing he wanted.  
  
"This guy doesn't just have a chip on his shoulder, he's got an entire brick wall," Rossi remarked, shaking his head as he came back in.  
  
"I didn't think this was going to be good, but _how bad_ is it going to be?" Simmons asked, trying to find a contiguous section of wall big enough to put a map on.  
  
"He's determined to use us in place of the patrol officers Sanderson can't spare him. Need-to-know only, and we don't need to know." Rossi shook his head. "There's something going on with him."  
  
"Yeah, he got shot in the leg. I wouldn't be all sunshine and dumplings after that. The DEA were feds, and we're feds. We're not the same agency, but we don't treat the cops here different than we treat the cops in Wisconsin. We're feds. We're arrogant interlopers trying to steal his case, and we're going to take the extra step to make sure he looks like an idiot, when we do, because as far as he knows, that's what feds are like. And honestly, the local office probably _is_ , and you know it."  
  
Rossi shook his head again. "No, how many times have we seen that? You know what that looks like. That's not this. This guy's got something else going on."  
  
"One of those 'who shot JFK' weirdos," Simmons proposed. "Or he thinks any government higher than the one he works directly for is hopelessly corrupt."  
  
Rossi tipped his head and nodded. "That I might believe. Especially around here, where the ousting of that corruption was such a big thing. The FBI hasn't publicly fired a majority of its agents and filled its ranks with fresh trainees with no pre-existing loyalties to each other or their supervisors."  
  
"Yeah, but we don't have that problem. Anything that happens, we clean up without the publicity." Simmons perched with one foot on a chair and the other on a short filing cabinet, trying to get the map straight.  
  
Rossi just stared at his back until he stepped down. "Tell that to Reid."  
  
"Is OPR still on his case?" Simmons asked, climbing back up with another piece of tape.  
  
"I'm not sure if it's a still or an again. This thing with Narcisse getting killed -- during the process of attempting to murder Agent Villette, if I'm not mistaken -- has brought up a lot of the original accusations, again. Of course, Reid did not shoot her, but there were still some concerns that she was not returned to Corrections in one piece."  
  
"She was there to kill him. She assaulted another agent in the process and was shot by... a third agent?"  
  
"Gates." Rossi nodded. "Like Garcia with a smaller dress size and a larger gun."  
  
"So, where was Reid while this was happening?" Simmons asked, stepping off the chair and trying to figure out where to put it that would be out of the way  
  
"According to statements taken at the scene, he was shut in a room with Frank and the forensic pathologist from Nebraska. None of them saw what happened in the living room, and by the time they got out there, Villette was down and Gates had shot Narcisse." Rossi picked up a block of sticky-tack and checked his notes before sticking a bit onto the map. "But, because he was present, OPR is investigating whether he lured her there to kill her."  
  
"That's ridiculous. _Reid?_ " Simmons picked up another colour and a different list and stuck another bit of sticky-tack on the map. "And how do you know all this? I thought it was an ACTF case."  
  
"Oh, I have my sources." Rossi marked another warehouse on the map. "And while I can be relatively sure that he would not help a murderer escape from prison, just so he could kill her, I think Reid has a few more sharp edges than you credit him with."

* * *

"Hello, my lovelies! I have uncovered what you were looking for, like the super-sleuth I am, and I accept tribute for my excellence in bon-bons." There was a long pause, while Garcia waited to see if she'd get a warning about who was in the room. When it failed to come, she went on. "Do you have any idea how many credit cards these people have?"  
  
"I'll get you the bon-bons Agent Gates likes," Reid promised, looking a good bit more amused than he felt at the moment.  
  
"I'm guessing the last charge for all the victims was a restaurant?" JJ prompted, far more impatient than usual, after several hours of Natale's patronizing behaviour.  
  
"You would be right, if not for Marisol Contreras, whose last stop was a gas station that doesn't have video. Trust me, first thing I checked. Neither do the restaurants, _but_ some nearby locations do, and there's the traffic cameras. I'm trying to get what I can, but at this hour, I'm not going to get everything. I've got a shot from much too far away that looks right for Harmon Williams. Right place, right time, probably the right shape according to the autopsy photos, and he's definitely wearing a jacket, when he comes out of the restaurant." Garcia sounded a little less proud of herself, a second later. "Unfortunately, this video is garbage, so I can't be absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, sure that it's him, and I can't be sure what kind of jacket that is, but it's definitely something winterweight. Sent that to your phones for later viewing."  
  
"Is the second to last charge for Contreras a restaurant?" Reid asked. "The M.E. says she'd eaten fairly recently before she died."  
  
"And rack up another point for Boy Genius, Marisol Contreras's second to last charge is at a seafood restaurant that charges _way too much_ for that neighbourhood. Charges way too much for anywhere. Who pays that for a fish sandwich, Jeff Bezos?" Garcia huffed in disgust. "Hm. These are... definitely people who are comfortable paying dollar amounts that would feed Villette for not nearly enough food to do it. There are pretty consistent histories with these restaurants -- others in similar price ranges, too, but I think it would be safe to say we're looking at people who might not be regulars at those restaurants, but they definitely weren't strangers. And three out of four tip well. If Montrose is going to tip like that, maybe his waitress killed him."  
  
Alvez cleared his throat and JJ covered a choked laugh with her hand.  
  
"Still, the victims didn't have any defensive wounds," Lewis pointed out, "which means they were probably incapacitated quickly. A server in a restaurant would have the access to introduce a sedative in the food or drink."  
  
Rossi nodded, staring across the room at the map, but not seeing it. "We don't have any needle marks on Williams, so it's unlikely he was injected with something. It would probably have been much easier to put something in his drink. But, that doesn't necessarily implicate a server. He might've met someone at the restaurant, or someone might have walked by and added something while he was in the bathroom. But, it is fairly likely, given the window we have, that he was drugged in the restaurant."  
  
Alvez turned from the wall of victim information, seriously considering whether his point had any validity. "The most frequent victims of serial killers are white women, eighteen to twenty-five. What are we not seeing here? They're all over fifty, with no strong preference for male or female victims. And now we know they all had money, and frequently ate in places that demonstrated that fact. They're _hogtied_ and gutted. Longpig. Eat the rich."  
  
"Except they're not rich," Reid argued. "Housing's just a lot less expensive here, because the average income is so low. By local standards, they're definitely upper-middle class, but they're not rich. They're only earning two to three times the average income. They're not earning much more than I do, and I can barely afford my apartment."  
  
"You live in the middle of D.C.," Alvez reminded him. "You're paying too much anyway."  
  
"Perhaps surprisingly, not actually the point. The point is that if you look at the upper end of incomes, even in Camden, if 'eat the rich' is the intention, you could do a lot better than these particular victims."  
  
"The other thing they have in common is _age_." Rossi sat down on the edge of the desk. "They're substitute parent age, at the least. The youngest is barely fifty, the oldest is sixty-five. But, they're not substitute parents, because they're not getting killed in pairs and the killer isn't sticking to one gender, either."  
  
"I'd say it's kill the Boomers, but at least one of them isn't and another one's right on that edge." JJ looked around the room. "What are we missing, guys?"  
  
"Start with what we know it's not," Reid suggested, picking up a Sharpie and stepping around a couple of people to get to one of the bookcase covers. "It's not gender; it's not wealth, although it may be income; it's not race or physical features; it's not the last restaurant they ate at; the type of cars they drove; the neighbourhood they lived in; though, again, income in those areas is higher; the company they worked for; the type of work they were doing; the composition of the household; marital status..." He trailed off and stared at the list. "We know they're all close to, but not in, in the same tax bracket. We don't know if they shared any underlying medical or psychological complications, and we're not going to get lab results for much too long to guess from medications or to find out if they were drugged. We don't know if they went to the same schools, though Anderson makes that less likely, because he's much too young to-- unless he was like me, but until the evidence supports that, they were probably not at the same university at the same time."  
  
"We know who they work for now. Where did they work before now?" JJ asked, pointing with her tablet stylus. "Was there ever a point when they _worked_ in the same place?"  
  
Garcia made an uncertain sound. "They've been where they are for a long time. Only one change of employment in the last decade, and that was when Ms Contreras switched law firms. Still corporate law, though."  
  
"Anything from that firm tie them all together?" Rossi asked, not expecting much. "The method of killing is almost definitely a punishment for _something_ , and the only things we've been able to find that these victims have in common is that they're all in the same tax bracket and they're all over fifty. And as the over fifty in the room, this sounds like they're paying for something they did when they were younger."  
  
Reid shook his head. "I'm not sure of that, yet. It's possible these people are stand-ins."  
  
"Still, disembowelment suggests a punishment, so even if these victims aren't the desired victims, they have to have something in common, however superficially, with those desired victims." JJ tapped the stylus against her lip, staring at Reid's list.  
  
"And if we go down that road, we're all going to lose our minds," Alvez argued. "Look, we just don't have enough to go on, yet. There's a lot here, but it tells us what's _not_ right."  
  
"Has anyone visited the scenes, yet?" Lewis asked, looking around the room. She and Alvez had left first, to take care of the interviews that provided most of the information in Reid's list.  
  
"That would've been me and Dave, but we had to stay here and smooth things over with Natale." Prentiss looked like she'd rather have pushed the detective down the nearest flight of stairs.  
  
"Is Natale still here?" Simmons asked, looking toward the covered window of the office, as if expecting him to appear.  
  
Rossi shook his head. "Oh, no. The end of his shift came, and he was out of here like he had a hot date. No overtime for Detective Natale, tonight."  
  
"I think it's an excellent time to go have a look at the crime scenes." Lewis smiled blandly, the sparkle in her eyes ruining the effect entirely.  
  
"Restaurants?" Reid asked, raising an eyebrow at JJ.  
  
"Let's do it." She slipped the stylus back into the tablet case and pointed at her jacket, which hung on the corner of the file cabinet behind Simmons.  
  
He handed it to her, and Rossi spoke again.  
  
"Keep looking, Garcia. Check out that law office and look further back into their pasts. I'm sure there's a connection, somewhere. We're just not looking in the right place, yet."


	4. Chapter 4

"Now, the thing that gets me," the security guard said, unlocking the pedestrian entrance to the cold dock, "is this. Right here. These doors are locked. These doors aren't just locked, they're automatically locked every time they close, so it's not like someone could've forgot to lock the door. It just doesn't happen. But, whoever the hell got in here, they didn't do any damage to the door -- to any of the doors, but this one's probably the one you'd use to sneak in, because the rest of them are truck-sized, and they're not real sneaky."  
  
Rossi eyed the keypad next to the door. "Can't get fingerprints off that, because whoever found the body must've used it to get in, but it's electronic. I bet your employers keep logs, don't they?"  
  
The guard shrugged and shoved the door open, gesturing for the agents to precede him. "I really don't know. Nobody ever breaks in. I'd be real surprised if that cop that came before you didn't already ask for them, though. Still, nobody wants to break into a place like this. Those Dole docks down the other end? They've got fruits. You can steal that. Here... we've got like... dough, I think. Not even pastries or something, just hundreds of thousands of pounds of frozen French dough and some other shit you can't just steal and eat. You go down a couple, and there's the guys that ship dairy. Comes in on the trains, I guess. They're always losing cheese, but I think that's an inside problem, you ask me."  
  
Once they'd stepped into the small room, the guard pulled the door shut behind them and opened the next door in front of them. "That doesn't open if the other door's open, unless you put in the emergency code from inside. That doesn't just unlock all the doors, it sets off alarms and calls the fire department. Nobody screws around with the emergency code. But, this is just to keep all the cold air from leaking out every time somebody ducks out for a smoke."  
  
Prentiss stepped into the refrigerated room, taking in the tall racks of pallets loaded with boxes of pastry dough. "So, were you the one who found the body?"  
  
"Me? Nah." The guard shook his head and pointed up at something they couldn't see from between the shelves. "One of the morning guys came in and spotted something wrong with one of the conveyors. He went to check it out and found a dead guy hanging from one of the rails. Like, you think cold storage, and everybody thinks of the meat units with the hooks and the sides of beef, but we're optimised for boxes, here, so there's no hooks. I wonder if your killer knew that, 'cause it's not really in the popular mind. Could be he came in here hoping for hooks. I heard your vic got gutted, and that sounds like a lot of horror movies that go with more... ah, meat processing stuff. I watch a lot of them horror movies. It's good stuff, 'cause it's all fake, and nobody ain't gonna think it's nothing else. You get them cop shows, and my cousin, he's a cop, he says they're garbage, but people think they're for real. Horror ain't gotta pretend it's real, it's just gotta scare the hell out of you."  
  
"You watch a lot of horror, huh?" Rossi nodded, studying the area that was still taped off, as they came out of the shelves. "You ever see one like this? Without the hooks, you know, something a little different from the usual."  
  
"Without the hooks, sure. But, not like this. On a cross, maybe, or hanging from the closet rail. But, not like... when it's industrial like this, it's almost always the hooks. Some kind of hooks, anyway. Never seen one where somebody got hung off the bottom of a conveyor. Tied to the top of a conveyor and run through factory machines, yeah, but not like this." The guard shook his head as if it were an offence to the genre.  
  
"Did you see the body, before it was removed?" Prentiss asked, looking over the area.  
  
There was nothing left to tell them more than they could learn from the scene photos. The area was still taped off, but not because it hadn't been disturbed, rather because it had been released quickly, so biohazard cleanup could begin before any of the food became contaminated, and that was still in progress. She could understand why that decision was made, but the most recent scene should have been preserved, if only because by then it was obviously serial, and everyone knew the FBI would be involved. But, the Natale had made the decision to release the scene the same day, citing a fear of disrupting the supply chain for food in the already precarious city. Still, as much as she could sympathise with the decision, _this_ warehouse hadn't held anything destined for _supermarkets_.  
  
"Nah. The morning guy called the manger, the manager called the cops, and we all got to stand around outside and make sure nobody got in before the cops did. But, the guys who saw it couldn't shut up about it. We all made jokes, you know? Trying to make those guys feel better. You can't just find a dead guy with his guts on the floor and go on with your day, but that's what management wanted. We told 'em the whole shift was wanted for questioning by the police, just to get 'em the day off." The guard shook his head sadly.  
  
"I think you did the right thing," Rossi told him, nodding sagely. "You have to take care of your people, at a time like this."  
  
"Yeah!" The guard smiled broadly. "You get it!"  
  
"I absolutely do." Rossi looked up at the rollers over his head. "From the perspective of a horror fan, what did you think of the way the body was hung up, if anybody mentioned it?"  
  
"See, that was weird, too. You expect people to get hung up by the wrists or the shoulders, or maybe like they're on a cross. Sometimes, you see upside down, too. I'm pretty sure I seen a couple like this, though, with the wrists and the ankles together. It ain't the usual thing, but not unknown." The guard stared up, following Rossi's gaze. "I mean, I guess if you wanted somebody's guts to fall out in a hurry, that's how you want to do it. But, I don't know that stuff for real. I just know horror."  
  
"Well, I think we can say this killer is not as big a fan of the genre as you are," Rossi pointed out, though he thought he'd ask Garcia to take a look at horror movie summaries, just in case this was inspired by a film -- and not a popular film, either; not one known to a self-confessed fan of the genre, who could speak with confidence about its tropes. But, that might explain the discrepancies in victimology. Maybe they just looked like the victims in the film.

* * *

JJ approached the hostess with a warm smile. "Hey, were you working here on Saturday night?"  
  
The woman nodded, black curls bouncing off her shoulders. "Yeah! Did you lose something?"  
  
"Actually, we're wondering if you saw this woman." JJ held out her phone, showing a photo of Marisol Contreras. "I'm sure you've already spoken to the police--"  
  
"The police?" The hostess recoiled, eyes leaping from the photo to the badge Reid held. "No! What happened to Marisol? She's here every Saturday, and she's so nice!"  
  
It was interesting, Reid thought, that the question was 'what happened to her' and not 'what did she do'. It made the 'so nice' a lot more believable. The victim had been well known and well liked in this restaurant, if the hostess knew her name and was concerned about her.  
  
JJ glanced back at Reid in confusion. "Maybe they were here on your day off. Would you like to sit down?"  
  
"Oh, my god. She's dead, isn't she? What happened? Was it a car crash? Did she finally have that heart attack we always used to say she'd get, if she didn't slow down?" The hostess pressed a button and stepped away from the counter, sitting in one of the chairs for people waiting to be seated.  
  
"I'm afraid she was murdered," Reid said quietly. "We're trying to find the last people who saw her alive, in the hope one of them saw something that can help us."  
  
Another young woman appeared, looking confused. "You're taking your break, already?"  
  
"Someone killed Marisol! You know, Saturday night, big fish, big tips?" the hostess said, her face plainly bearing her own confused distress.  
  
Shock splashed across the waitress's face. "No! Who would kill her? She's such a nice lady!"  
  
"That's what we're trying to find out. Did either of you see her on Saturday?" JJ asked, looking back and forth between them.  
  
"Yeah, she was sitting at her table, where she always does, over by the window." The waitress pointed into the relatively busy dining room.  
  
"So, anyone walking by could've seen her," JJ suggested, her eyes following the waitress's finger.   
  
Reid shook his head. "It's not likely. The half-curtains in the windows probably block most people's faces."  
  
The hostess pointed at him and nodded. "That's what they're for. That and keeping the sun out of your eye." She paused, one hand clenched around the fingers of the other hand. "How could anyone kill Marisol?"  
  
"That's what we're going to find out," JJ said firmly. "I need to know everything you remember from the time she came in to the time she left on Saturday -- what was her mood, what was she wearing, what did she order, did anyone stop to talk to her? Everything."  
  
"And did she leave her coat here?" Reid asked, suddenly.  
  
"Was she wearing one?" The waitress asked the hostess. "I don't think she was wearing one."  
  
The hostess shook her head. "No, she wasn't. She just had that little jacket that went with her outfit." Her hands gestured at about mid-chest, marking the length of the garment. "And the scarf around her head. We tease her, because she comes in looking like a movie star. These fancy suits that look like something out of old pictures from Hollywood, with the sunglasses and the scarf around her head."  
  
The waitress nodded in agreement. "She was wearing that red one I like, with the pearls and the light scarf. What colour is that? Caramel?"  
  
"No, caramel's darker. It's a light light tan, like a... camel, maybe, or a khaki." The hostess seemed to even out a little once the topic turned away from death. "And those shoes! Did you see her shoes? The red leather with the round toe and the pearls on them?"  
  
"Oh, those shoes! I love those shoes! I asked her where she got them, but she said they were a gift, and she didn't know. How sad is that, someone gives you shoes, and they don't even give you a gift receipt with them?"  
  
"Did anyone talk to her, while she was here?" JJ looked back at the tables by the window, which were a step up from the rest of the floor, so anyone stopping at her table might have been more visible than if she'd been sitting elsewhere.  
  
The waitress and the hostess looked at each other, shrugged and shook their heads.  
  
"I sat her. She doesn't have a reservation, but she comes in about the same time every week, so we just know she's coming now. Sometimes she doesn't come, but it's not like it hurts us to hold her table for a while, just in case. People aren't that desperate to eat here. We're kind of expensive, and around here..." The hostess shrugged apologetically.  
  
"And she's always in my section," the waitress added, "because she always sits in the same place. So, I talk to her. But, she never brings anyone here, never meets anyone here."  
  
"Would anyone else have brought her another drink or maybe cleared her dishes, while she was here?" Reid asked. "We're going to need contact information for everyone who was working, that night, just in case anyone else saw something."  
  
But, as the hostess went to get something to write on, he reflected that it was less likely one of them saw something and more likely one of them had _done_ something.


	5. Chapter 5

"Tomorrow, we're going to have to do more interviews," JJ said, passing the list to Prentiss, who sat on the foot of Reid's bed.  
  
There really wasn't enough space for all of them in one motel room, but they were doing their best impression of it, because it was better than trying to work in the office at the police station, which was only a little less crowded and more likely to leak information. It shouldn't have been a problem, but they didn't want to leave Natale alone with their work, for any length of time, so they'd agreed to take copies back with them and to remove certain critical information from what they'd left behind.  
  
"Did this guy really do no work on this case?" Alvez asked, looking up from where he was perched next to the coffee maker, still typing up the interviews of the victims' relatives. "Four victims in less than a week, and he didn't even run the credit cards?"  
  
"He released the scenes in less than twelve hours," Rossi pointed out, "so either he works extremely quickly, or he's entirely incompetent."  
  
"All of those warehouses were transfer points for perishable foods." Prentiss held up a hand and shrugged. "The reports say he was concerned for the critical infrastructure of the city, and I can see how he got there, but it puts us in a difficult position."  
  
"He's incompetent, obstructive, or being bribed," Reid concluded, looking through the documents they'd gotten from Sanderson, before he'd left for the day. "And there's no reason for him to be obstructing his _own_ investigation. Bribery's a strong motivator, but who would be bribing him? And _Sanderson_ doesn't think he's incompetent. I think he'd have mentioned that, and probably before the fact Natale doesn't like federal agents."  
  
"This is a force that was recently restructured. Natale shouldn't have the kind of connections to be 'catering to local interests'." Alvez made air quotes with one hand, the other one still balancing the laptop.  
  
"Unless they're recent." Simmons shook his head and shrugged. "Whatever it is, it's not what we're here for. We treat it as obstruction, and focus on the case, right?"  
  
"Yeah. Yeah, I know you're right, something about this guy just bugs the shit out of me." Alvez shook his head. "Thinks he's Sherlock Holmes, but he's running the case like an idiot."  
  
"Is he, though?" Lewis asked, looking up from her notes. "Everyone we've spoken to has complained that there aren't enough police, and there won't be, until the next class comes out of the academy. As soon as we arrived, he made sure we knew he was in charge, and immediately started assigning us as if we were uniformed officers. He knows what needs to be done, but he doesn't have the staff to handle it. And I suspect that he released the scenes as soon as the evidence was gathered for similar reasons. He's right that holding up the transport of perishable food could cause serious problems for the city, and with manpower as limited as it is, right now, it's not the worst choice to rely on the scene photographs instead of the actual site, given the consequences of trying to keep the scene uncontaminated. Still, we're here, now, and I'd like to make sure we can hold the next scene."  
  
"Assuming there is a next scene."  
  
JJ looked over her shoulder at Simmons. "Serial killer, Matt. There's a next scene."  
  
"If Dave's onto something with the film thing, there might not be," Simmons argued.  
  
"As the Dave in question, Dave is not onto something," Rossi said, holding up his hands. "It's a long shot, but the security guard made me curious."  
  
"You didn't give that to Garcia, did you?" JJ asked, giving Rossi a long look.  
  
"It seemed like something best handled by searching the internet, and her skill in acquiring and filtering that kind of information far exceeds any of our own." Rossi gazed back, questioning the judgement he was obviously facing. "Who else would I have given it to?"  
  
"Couldn't you have borrowed Gates?" Prentiss asked. "You know Garcia doesn't do gore, and you just sent her to check horror movies against our crime scene photos."  
  
"Gates has her own team to worry about, and they're down Villette," Rossi argued. "And I didn't ask her to watch them, I asked her to search for certain keywords and send me the results so _we_ could check them."  
  
"I hate to be the one to say it, because this may actually pan out, but we don't have the time and Garcia... shouldn't be doing it." Reid stood up, rubbing his forehead like he didn't have a headache yet, but he could feel one coming. He grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. "We have a consultant. I'm calling Frank."  
  
"Doesn't he projectile vomit at the sight of dead people?" JJ called after him.  
  
"Only if they're real. He's got a good eye for special effects." Reid stepped out of the room and pulled the door shut behind him, phone already in his hand. He pushed the button that would call Langly, disappointed, but unsurprised when it went to voicemail. Langly was probably still dealing with arrangements for Jeanine Moore.  
  
"I'm calling to say that I love you, but I'm calling a little early, because I need to ask you a favour. There's something about this case that's making Rossi think it's related to a low-budget horror movie, and Garcia's not going to sleep if she has to check. So, I'm going to call her and tell her to send it to you, because I watched you crit your way through Psycho Bloodstain Massacre Four, the other week, and we're looking for something surprisingly less gory. If you get too many results off Rossi's parameters, call me and I'll give you something to narrow it down." He cleared his throat. "And I do love you. I miss you already. I'll talk to you when we're both not busy at the same time."

* * *

  
And Langly was busy. And so, so glad he could use the phone without touching the phone, because he had Jeanine on one line and a message from Reid on the other, and he was trying to book a flight for the next day, there and back again. He figured Jeanine wasn't expecting any of this to actually work, from the way she'd been talking to him, but that was fine, as long as she showed up at the airport.  
  
"Look, I can get you here by two thirty, if you can be at the airport in Lincoln by eleven. And that's a long estimate that probably includes finding a place to park. Definitely includes the fact that it's an hour later, here. Add another hour or so because traffic's completely unpredictable, that's not my car, and I've never been where we're going, and we'll be where Villette wants us before four. You do what you need to do, and as long as I can get you back to the airport by eight, you should be back in Lincoln before nine-thirty." Langly waited, hands paused in midair. "That enough time?"  
  
"A four hour Virginia vacation?" Moore laughed. "Not really."  
  
"Hey, you're the one who has to work in the morning, or I'd stretch it out a day and show you around." Langly shot back, trying not to just call Reid, while he waited for her to make up her mind.  
  
"Do it. I'll come. I've never been on a plane."  
  
"This isn't exactly representative. Less 'plane', more 'private jet'." Langly's fingers flicked, securing the flights for the next day. "And a lot less airport security. Flying's not as easy as I'm about to make it."  
  
"Of course it is. But, only when one knows the back ways, like you do."  
  
Langly decided not to correct her -- it was mostly that he'd become implausibly rich, although having his particular skills did make it a lot more possible to book a flight _in a hurry_. "I gotta call Villette and let him know you're coming."  
  
"I like him," Moore decided.  
  
"He's not single," Langly drawled, disconnecting the call.  
  
Really, he _was_ , but Langly was pretty sure dating another clone wasn't going to end well for him, after what happened with Mary. Villette needed -- as he'd said, himself -- a nice, outdoorsy girl with a PhD, who was willing to put up with the anomalous bullshit and the fact that he ate like a black hole. And really, it was the second half of that that was difficult, as far as Langly had been able to determine. And then there was the cop's wife problem, which he was pretty sure was only solved by dating other cops, journalists, or emergency workers.  
  
And when he put it like that, one of the clones probably did almost fit, but it wasn't Moore, it was _Varga_.  
  
And he still wasn't helping any of the clones hook up with Villette, because that was a _terrible idea_. Oh, yeah, here, have this slightly used fed. I already licked him. _That_ was going to end well.  
  
He listened to Reid's message again, actually able to pay attention, this time. A little early? Oh, it was still early, wasn't it? Not a lot early, but definitely earlier than he'd thought it was if Reid was calling. Right. Okay. Take over this query from Penny, then call back.  
  
He reached out across the network and grabbed the list she hadn't actually sent, yet, getting in the way of her next query like a cat standing on the keyboard. Opening a terminal window on the monitor she was using, he set the font to something large and neon green.  
  
' _Reid said knock it off. So knock it off. I've got this._ '  
  
Had Langly been using a screen, it would've filled with little pink hearts. As it was, about nineteen hundred of them scrolled across the back of his eyes. Nineteen hundred and twenty, actually. _Nicely done_ , he thought, recognising a standard terminal size.  
  
He grabbed a line, dropped it, and then grabbed his _own_ line, knowing Reid would actually answer that number. Of course, if he made the ringtone weird enough, Reid would know it had to be either him or White Rabbit. The fourth ring, he told himself, but Reid picked up on the third.  
  
"Well, hello, Special Agent Sexy. Thought I was going to get your voicemail," he teased, having expected no such thing.  
  
"Please remember I'm not sharing a room with Agent Villette, so I'm standing outside on a public walkway."  
  
"So, what, I shouldn't tell you I'm lying here, thinking about your hot body sprawled naked across my bed?" The deadpan delivery was flawless.  
  
There was a long pause. "You're sitting at your desk. I can hear the difference in the room. And yes, that's exactly the conversation you shouldn't try to have with me right now."  
  
"Why aren't you having this conversation in the bathroom?"  
  
"Because my entire team is sitting in the room I'm sharing with JJ, discussing the case, and while I'm absolutely sure that she has some sense of discretion, I'd rather not give Rossi any more ammunition. Or anyone else, for that matter."  
  
"Speaking of Rossi, is he serious about this horror movie thing?" Langly asked, sounding like he didn't quite believe it.  
  
"Garcia's locked out of some other paths until morning, because she didn't get the request for restricted records in until after business hours, and before you say it, because of where those records have to come from, we really do need to go through appropriate channels--"  
  
"No, you need to officially go through appropriate channels, and your consultant, who is not going to get caught, can tell you whether you're wasting your time."  
  
"It doesn't matter, right now. I don't think we're getting anything else done before tomorrow, even if we did have that information, because we're running into some problems with the locals, and that has to be accounted for and dealt with. In less than twelve hours, we'll have what we need." Reid sounded tired in a way he rarely did.  
  
"Okay, if the locals are withholding information, I'll--"  
  
"You can't. It's on paper."  
  
"It's the twenty-first god damn century. What the hell do you mean it's on paper?"  
  
"It's Camden. They're understaffed and still recovering from that restructure that involved firing the entire department. A lot of records have been ... misplaced, and the older they are the more likely they've disappeared. So, we have no idea if this was a copycat, or if this killer has struck before in Camden, or if these _victims_ have been arrested for anything in the past--"  
  
"Okay, but if _you_ can't tell about the victims, then neither can anyone else."  
  
"Unless the killer _caused_ those records to disappear. Or was also involved in whatever crime might have been committed." Reid sighed, the headache finally hitting like a trash compactor. "There's nothing but the method of death to link the victims, but it's still the first day. We've been on this case for about nine hours, and six of them have been _after hours_. Things will start falling into place, tomorrow. It's just too early."  
  
"Are you absolutely sure--"  
  
"Yes. If you're bored, make sure Chaz doesn't break anything else, because he's too much like me for his health."  
  
"And, yet, when you do it--"  
  
"I'm older."  
  
Langly could hear the smile that Reid was fighting. "Then what's your excuse when I do it?"  
  
"If you think I shouldn't be doing it, neither should you," Reid sounded smug.  
  
"Hypocrite."  
  
"Isn't everyone?" There was a weighted pause. "I love you."  
  
"Which makes me the luckiest man in the world. I'll take a look at those horror movies for you, call you if I find anything. I'll call you if I don't find anything. Tell you what, if I leave a message, don't put it on speaker."  
  
"L-- _Frank!_ Don't--"  
  
Langly disconnected.


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning, Reid was halfway through his second cup of coffee when Prentiss called to wake him.  
  
"We've got another body. Are you up?"  
  
"Drinking coffee and doing the crossword. I'll wake JJ." He was already on his feet and crossing the room to get his shoes and jacket. "Where are we going?"  
  
"Down to the docks. They'll lead us in from there." Prentiss paused. "Wake JJ and tell her to meet us at the station, later. I want to make sure we're on the scene before Natale can make any more decisions I'm not going to like."  
  
"Consider it done."

* * *

Natale had gotten there before them, and a crime scene team was already taking photos, while they waited for the ME. Natale stood just far enough from the body that he couldn't quite be said to be contaminating the scene, looking up at where the man hung from a hook, this time, the frozen sides of beef parted to remain untainted by the fluids. He turned a confounded smile on the two agents, as they approached.  
  
"And again, this guy just walks in, in the middle of the night, hangs up a body, and..." Natale gestured as if the corpse were somehow inevitable. "They don't go to the same church, they don't work together, they don't go to the same places. It's like the guy's picking random victims, just so we won't figure him out."  
  
"But, if that were the case, why wouldn't the UnSub pick more random places to leave his victims?" Reid asked, his eyes locked on the pool of blood and pile of viscera. No matter how many times he saw something like this, it still raised the hair on the back of his neck. And he'd never managed to decide whether the idea of it being him was more upsetting than the idea of it being _on_ him. He put his hands in his pockets. "Unless we're looking at this the wrong way, and it's the location that matters, and the victims were merely convenient, but none of them have been, up to this point. The victims were anything but convenient choices. They--"  
  
"So, maybe he's challenging himself," Natale offered as the team from the Medical Examiner's office brought the body down and the scene techs moved in for more photographs and samples. "Trying to get to people he shouldn't be able to."  
  
"A challenge, but not too much of a challenge. Enough to test the outer edges of the skills involved, but not enough for a real risk of failure." Reid rolled the thought around in his head, watching the initial examination of the body. "This should suggest that each victim was more difficult to capture than the preceding one, but we have no real proof of that. What we have is proof that these people were taken shortly after their last meals at expensive restaurants, and other than that, they have very little in common."  
  
"So, maybe it's a statement about the kind of people the restaurants are bringing into the city," Natale suggested, clapping Reid on the shoulder in a way that could have been friendly but wasn't. "So, if we sit around outside these places, maybe we'll catch the guy."  
  
"Man's got a point," Prentiss admitted. "It's the only commonality we have, so far, but there are a limited number of restaurants that expensive, in _Camden_. The question is whether we have the manpower, and also whether it's worth watching the restaurants themselves."  
  
"Don't do that." Reid shot an offended look at Natale and stepped out from under the hand. "None of the footage we have suggests the UnSub is taking people from the restaurants. The victims who have been found on surveillance video appear to leave the restaurants alone. Only the first two cars have been found so far, and they were parked on the street in places that don't have cameras, so it's possible they're meeting someone after dinner. I'm really not sure watching the restaurants is the best use of the small number of people we have."  
  
"When we get back, we'll see if Garcia's come up with anything," Prentiss decided, circling the clean edge of the scene to get the Medical Examiner's opinions. "Something must connect them, and now that we're looking at a fifth victim, maybe it'll become clearer. Maybe we missed something."

* * *

"It is your lucky day, my Italian stallion!" Garcia chirped, when Rossi answered the phone. "I have found where your first four victims meet, and if I check the name of the fifth against the same place in the same period, I bet I can find him too. Do you have a name yet?"  
  
"Not yet. He hasn't been reported missing, yet, and he's not carrying any ID." Rossi put the phone on speaker and set it on the desk. "So? Where are they connected?"  
  
"Do you remember that huge scandal with the bad body armour in Afghanistan?" Garcia didn't wait for a response before she went on. "That was Levonel Yards. And every single one of the victims was working for Levonel Yards at the time, in the division responsible for the body armour."  
  
Alvez's face blanked as recognition lit his eyes. "That's why they're disembowelled. That was the most common failure -- the plates would shatter and because the backing wasn't good quality, the shards would punch back into the abdomen. There were a lot of guys who came back with chunks of intestine missing and a lot more that came back in boxes."  
  
"It was a catastrophic failure," Garcia agreed, the words coming faster now. "And there was a senate hearing to determine whether Levonel should have known this was a problem, no, whether they _did_ know it was a problem, when they pitched the armour to the Department of Defence. And Contreras was the lawyer that advised the company's response. Montrose was the quality assurance manager they couldn't prove was hiding failed test results. Williams handled one of the production lines for the plates. And it was Anderson's first DoD contract negotiation. All of these people were in some way directly involved in those vests being produced and sent overseas."  
  
"So, there's a good chance our UnSub's either a survivor of one of those vests or the relative of someone who died from one," JJ proposed, tapping her tablet pen on the edge of the case. "But, why at the docks? The other consistent element is that they've all been killed in cold docks."  
  
"So, it's exactly the opposite of how the plates failed..." Garcia sounded uncertain, but she went on. "The plates were supposedly fine until they were exposed to 'extreme temperatures', and the high end, according to the later tests, is below the average summer temperature in the lowlands of Afghanistan. The low end is... a little above freezing. Which is... around the temperature of at least _some_ of the cold storage facilities in the port. It doesn't look like this killer's going for total accuracy, though, because not all of the ones where bodies were found are for frozen foods. Oh. Wait. No, no, no... No, Afghanistan is supposed to be hot, isn't it? Wha-- Mountains. There's mountains, and the low failure temperature means the plates wouldn't have survived the winter in Kabul or anywhere else in the mountains. So, they could have hit both failure temperatures in the course of a few months, depending on where they were used, and the more exposure to either temperature extreme, the more likely they were to shatter catastrophically."  
  
"Levonel Yards was what we were missing." Simmons edged around JJ to get back to Reid's list. "Two victims still work there. The rest of them left around the same time, didn't they? They were the people actually implicated, I bet, and the company had to get rid of them, to look like it was taking the accusations seriously."  
  
"All of them left in June of two thousand four, with very large severance packages, and they've all been barred from working on any further Defence contracts or for any companies handling Defence contracts. And, yes, it looks like that was one of the terms of the settlement. Fifteen people, mostly middle management, but a handful of executives, were fired with benefits, and several others were found to have been uninvolved in the conspiracy, because their information was coming entirely from the others, and they had no way of knowing anything was wrong. That second group includes both victims still working for Levonel Yards." Keyboard sounds replaced Garcia's voice for a few seconds. "And I have sent both lists to your email, because I can almost guarantee the latest victim is in there."  
  
"Can you get photos of all the potential victims who are male and over fifty to Reid?" Rossi suggested, picking up his phone again. "He and Prentiss should still be with the body."  
  
"Please, give me something complicated." Garcia paused, right down to the silence from her keyboard. "That isn't horror movies. That was just--" A disgusted sound followed. "Frank says there aren't any close matches, and I'm not exactly surprised, given the other connections, but he's sending what he has to Reid."  
  
Alvez looked like he was trying not to laugh. "Don't worry. I'm sure Prentiss will get it off his phone."  
  
"So, the next thing we need to do is narrow down potential suspects, because 'veterans of the war in Afghanistan' is a huge number of people, even if we're only looking at people who were wounded by Levonel's armour. Family members of the dead makes an even bigger list." Alvez looked around the room. "What else do we know?"  
  
"It's someone the victims aren't afraid of, at first, so we're probably looking for people who, I hate to say it, weren't badly scarred on visible parts of their bodies," JJ offered.  
  
"Assuming it's not _family_ of someone who was," Simmons pointed out.  
  
Rossi shook his head. "Let's start with a smaller list, and work out from there, if we can't find a connection. We're dealing with large enough numbers that we have to be able to start with the narrowest field we can get, or we'll be here all month, working through the larger list. Can we agree it's _most likely_ to be someone who was wounded badly, but recovered enough to be physically capable of the murders we're seeing?"  
  
"Okay, let's start there. Nobody's going to be angrier than the people who were _there_." Alvez nodded contemplatively. "It's someone who probably had a serious enough injury to need at least some intestine removed, but not so much they still need equipment. We're looking for someone who can leave the house easily. Probably still has a job, and it's most likely a profession that means they dress in a way the victims don't find threatening. This is someone who's probably comfortable in a suit or a uniform. Like JJ says, somebody who doesn't have facial scars, at least, and probably not visible tattoos, so probably no scars or tattoos below the elbow or above the shoulder."  
  
JJ pointed at Alvez and nodded. "You're right about the job. This is unlikely to be someone who can't afford to dress well, or doesn't wear it well. This is someone you wouldn't look at twice, if you passed them on the street, in a middle-class neighbourhood."  
  
"Race is still up in the air." Simmons gestured with the Sharpie he'd been using to make notes. "Statistically, white guys, but not with something like this. If it's someone who was wounded by a failing vest, then I think we're still looking for a man. Women are brought up to let go of their own personal injuries a lot faster. It's more likely a woman if it's a family member, though. That's someone who's angry about someone else's injury and the grief it's still causing them."  
  
"For a living vet, yeah," Alvez agreed, looking over his shoulder, "but, once we get into people who died from it, men go back up the list, because it's about honour, at that point."  
  
JJ held up a finger. "But, we're only looking at _wounded veterans_ , so, yes. I think it's more likely to be a man, but if there are any women who fit, we can't ignore them."  
  
"Second stage," Rossi suggested. "First we go through the men that fit, because it really is more likely to be a man. Then we go through the women, if we don't find a good match. Then we start looking at family members."  
  
"When were the vests recalled?" JJ asked.  
  
"In... late oh-three," Garcia replied, the clatter of the keyboard almost a blur of sound. "The vests were recalled almost as soon as the Department of Defence realised what was happening, but they didn't have enough replacements to send until oh-five, so a lot of vests didn't actually come back. The vests were still killing people in oh-nine, which is completely horrible, because we are spending so much money on equipment and where is it even _going_!?"  
  
Rossi whistled, eyes wide. "So, that's ... seven and a half years? Maybe eight?"  
  
"Almost eight," Garcia confirmed. "The numbers probably start to come down after the first five, but those first two years are... I have to actually get these names. I can only get numbers from news reports, right this second, because we're talking medical information and Veterans' Affairs, but let's see what kind of magic I can work. I'll call you when I know something. Anything..." She huffed loudly. " _Bureaucracy_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The queue is now long enough to support Sunday/Wednesday updates! I'm finally catching up with myself!


	7. Chapter 7

Coming back from the ME's office, Reid finally took a moment to listen to his messages. Langly had left two, which suggested there was something he didn't know, yet, and he wasn't sure how important the second one would be. He was pretty sure the first was just an update on the films, which Garcia had also gotten.  
  
As the first message ended, having been exactly what he'd expected, he glanced over at Prentiss. "Frank says hello. He also says I'm completely technologically incompetent, which is _not true_ , but he's right that you should probably get the data off my phone."  
  
"When we get back to the office, I'll do it." Prentiss waved dismissively and picked up her coffee, eyes never leaving the road.  
  
As the next message started, Reid's eyes rounded and he suddenly hung up, slipping the phone back into his pocket, eyes darting to the side to make sure Prentiss hadn't heard any of those first few seconds. No, he would not be listening to that in the car with Prentiss. Nor would he be listening to it anywhere else people existed in close enough proximity to become even slightly aware of the content of the message or his reactions to it.  
  
"You okay?" Prentiss asked, suddenly.  
  
"Me? Yeah, I'm great." Reid tried to ignore the way his voice cracked, but coughed to cover it and pulled his own coffee out of the cup holder. "I just really need a cough drop."  
  
"Spencer..."  
  
"It is not relevant to the case, and I'm not going to discuss it. Everything's fine." He coughed again and popped open the glovebox, hoping someone had left a bag of cough drops or even a peppermint. "I really did do something to my throat, though."

* * *

"Philip Cassidy, age sixty-seven, retired," Prentiss said as she came into the room. "The ME can't fit the autopsy in today, but she's willing to squeeze it in early tomorrow morning, as a favour, because this is a serial case."  
  
"His fingerprints were on file because he'd had a background check before he could be hired at his last job. He was an accountant at a hospital." Reid pulled the door shut behind them. "And he's on Garcia's list. I'm as sure as I can be that the intended victims are all former Levonel employees who were working on the armour plates. Three is a pattern, but five should be enough for anyone."  
  
"We should contact anyone on the list who's still alive," Lewis suggested, standing up as if she meant to do it herself. "Some of them have probably died of natural causes by now, and there are the five victims we're aware of."  
  
"Suggesting there are victims we're not aware of." Simmons shot her a concerned look. "These have all been pretty public killings. The bodies aren't hidden or buried. Whoever's doing this wants someone to find them, wants people to know that they're paying for what they did."  
  
"It's been enough years that this may not be the first killer with an interest in Levonel's employees," Alvez pointed out with a sympathetic shrug. "People were angry, and they had a right to be. What they did not have a right to be is killers, but when has that ever stopped somebody with a violent grudge?"  
  
"Rarely," Reid agreed, trying to figure out where in the tiny room put him furthest from anyone else. "But, if we're calling people who are still alive, I think for now, we only have to worry about current and former Levonel employees living in the Camden area. Not everyone who worked on that project would have stayed here, especially if they left the company."  
  
"Take Alvez and see whoever's still here," Prentiss told Lewis. "It's a small enough number of people that I don't think we have to worry about spreading panic."  
  
"The newspapers are doing that well enough without the help." JJ held out a folded paper to Prentiss. "The Camden Chiller Strikes Again, according to this morning's paper."  
  
"How did they get the story that fast?" Reid blinked. "A morning newspaper is usually being delivered to distributors by five. There's no way they got this story enough before we did to make the press deadline..."  
  
"Oh, they did. 'An unnamed source' contacted the crime reporter directly, and they held the morning edition for it. Which means the guy who found the body called the paper before he called the police." JJ shook her head and rolled her eyes. "So, any evidence from this scene might be a reporter instead of the UnSub."  
  
"Oh, my god." Prentiss sighed and took the paper. "Okay, we need to call the reporter. We don't need his source, we just need to know when he got to the scene. We can use this -- it'll help us with time of death, which is still pretty wide open because of the refrigeration and the cause of death. Simmons? You want to call the reporter? Lewis, you and Alvez go see the--"  
  
"Call," JJ interrupted. "If we visit them, and the UnSub's watching his next victim..."  
  
Prentiss nodded. "Call them. If you can't reach them, leave a message saying something about wanting to talk to them about another one of the victims. Ask them to call us back urgently, before dinner, if at all possible. If we can get to them before they go out, we might be able to stop them from going out."  
  
"It's going to change the MO, but it also gives us a few days while the UnSub figures out that the victims have changed their patterns. And hopefully, that will be enough days to catch up." The tension around Reid's eyes was clear. "There are a _lot_ of people who wish our victims ill, given the scope of their actions. There has to be some way to cut down the list..."  
  
"Garcia hasn't sent us the first set of people of interest, yet," Alvez told him, shrugging. "I guess the VA is hard to get anything out of, but she's only been trying for a couple of hours. It's Garcia; she'll have something soon."  
  
"She always does," Reid agreed, nodding. "But, I--"  
  
"Lawsuits." JJ sat up straighter. "The names of a lot of the people who were wounded in vest failures _are_ public information, because class action lawsuits."  
  
Prentiss pointed at her. "Call Garcia. She's probably already thought of it, but call her anyway, and get her to compare those results to the Veterans' Affairs results. Names that only appear on one list are going to be a lot more interesting -- mostly they'll be people who didn't get a settlement, because they missed the window for it or because the terms of the settlement didn't sit right with them. Some of them are going to be people who didn't believe money was appropriate compensation."  
  
"But, at the same time, there are going to be people who _did_ take the settlement because they needed the money, but didn't think it was enough compensation or enough damage to the company to reflect the damage done to them, personally," Reid argued, holding up his hands. "But, I see your point, and we do have to start somewhere."  
  
"We're not even looking for someone who _knows what they're doing_ ," Simmons lamented, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. "This isn't a doctor or even a butcher. This is someone who figured out what they were doing by doing it until they got it right. There's really not a lot to narrow the field."  
  
"They can drive and the victims don't find them frightening." JJ shrugged and then pointed at Rossi. "But, they've either got the lock codes or overrides for all the warehouses. They're all the same, right? No damage to the doors?"  
  
Reid nodded, his eyes lighting up. "Who would have access to that information? People who have worked for those companies in the past or present -- I doubt they change the codes as often as they should -- or--"  
  
Rossi cut him off, shaking his head. "Not only do they not change the codes, all the warehouses that have gotten hit were still using the default codes for those lock models."  
  
Reid raised his eyebrows, a smile creeping across his face. "And if we strongly suggest that every company with a warehouse on those docks change the codes, because there's a killer who's familiar with the defaults?"  
  
"We cut down the number of places it's possible to commit _these_ murders." Rossi smiled back, eyes gleaming with anticipation. "And if there are fewer places to use, then there's a greater chance the killer's going to get stuck, trying to find one."  
  
"And we know which ones it _can't_ be, so we can talk to port security about adjusting the patrols to better cover the places it _could_ be." Reid slipped his hands into his pockets and nodded. "We just have to make it easier for the UnSub to make a mistake. Getting the potential victims to stay home and getting the warehouse lock codes changed should make it a lot harder to successfully acquire a victim and complete the killing in the desired fashion. But, we know the UnSub's not going to stop _trying_."  
  
JJ sat back, looking up at Reid. "What are the chances we're just going to push the UnSub into a less-involved method of killing? We're counting on the presentation holding as much weight as the deaths, but if we've obviously caught on, what's to say the next victim doesn't get gut-shot in a parking garage?"  
  
"Because I don't think the presentation is for _us_. I think it's for the victims. And, yes, shooting them might be closer to the original injury that's being mimicked, but we're past that. This isn't about what we, the investigators, think. It's about the victims' fear as they recognise what's happening. It's about capturing that moment of realisation, when they understand what this is about and how it's going to end." Reid chewed his lip and stared at the leg of JJ's chair. "If you shoot someone non-fatally, you've lost the impact of that recognition. They're already in pain. They can't hear what you're telling them. And parking garages, in particular, are the kind of places where you really can't stand around to watch someone die. If the idea is that the attacks are going to take place in places the victims normally visit, then we have to consider that we're most likely still going to be looking for abductions, because our UnSub is going to want to watch the deaths. Most of the potential victims don't live alone, so taking them home and, for instance, turning the heat or the cooler all the way up, isn't going to work. I think we need to make sure that some warehouses are still available, so we don't disrupt the pattern so badly we're not looking at where it resurfaces."  
  
"And the next victim is whoever can't follow the directions," Prentiss sighed, but nodded. "But, in theory, if we're watching, then we can rescue the victim and catch the UnSub. I would rather be able to come at this from a better position, but right now, I think it's our best chance for damage control. Do we all know what we're doing?"  
  
Nods and sounds of agreement came from around the room, as they all tried to find what they needed and get out of the small office.  
  
"Where's Natale?" Reid asked, as JJ squeezed past him, to let Lewis out of the corner. He'd managed to back into a file cabinet, which was at least better than backing into Alvez, which had been his other option.  
  
Rossi offered a nearly inscrutable smile, that Reid had already figured out was impolite, before he even opened his mouth. "Detective Natale is presently doing his _own_ paperwork."


	8. Chapter 8

Reid knew he shouldn't have been taking the time to listen to Langly's message, right then, but he wanted to have heard it, so he could stop thinking about it. He was supposed to be waiting for the representatives of several of the companies he'd called about the warehouse codes to call him back. Apparently, for some facilities, changing the passcode for the doors was a much more serious and complicated request, and those, he thought, were the ones they most needed to reach. Companies that could implement the change with minimal effort and minimal impact were more likely to be companies that changed their codes fairly regularly.  
  
But, he wasn't thinking about warehouse codes as he pressed the message button, having gone out to the car to listen to it. No one would be going anywhere, for a while -- the work that needed to be done involved phone calls, as opposed to visits -- and the car was the closest thing to privacy he could manage. Which was that much more important as Langly's voice poured into his ear, interspersed with little gasps and half-voiced sounds.  
  
"Starting to miss you," the voice purred, or at least as close to a purr as Langly ever got. "I guess I got used to having you there, in the safehouse. Got used to having your hot body pressed against me at all hours, waking up with your arms wrapped around me, falling asleep with your _legs_ wrapped around me, knowing that however busy we got, it was only going to be a couple more hours before I could get my hands all over your naked body again. And it's been a couple of days, and I'm... _really_ missing you. Missing your incredible ass, missing that little scar on the side of your neck, missing those little noises you make when you're having a really hot dream. You do, you know. It's almost enough to make me envy Villette. But, he can have you when you're asleep, as long as I get you some of the time you're awake. God, your _body_... I can't wait to have you all over me, again. Naked and sweaty and naked in bed. In _our_ bed, that I bought because I love you and I like Villette enough to make sure his feet won't stick off the end of it, while he's sucking your dick. And I love that you let me kiss you when he does that. You let me touch you." A breathy, desperate sound interrupted the distracted rambling. "And you let me have you, when he's done. You let me get between you. You are everything I never dreamed I wanted, and I don't know if I'm ever going to have too much of you. You are so god damn--"  
  
The phone beeped twice, cutting off the end of the message, and Reid just sat there for a moment, before he listened to it again. The second time, he understood the _rest_ of it. Obviously, Langly had a little too much time on his hands which had probably converted to something _else_ on his hands, but that hollowness that came with the end of a case was close under it. They'd had one night _together_ , after everything, and then Langly had gone to help with Kim, and he'd gone back to work. And it should've been okay. But, there just really wasn't enough time.  
  
Langly was still cleaning up after Kim's attack on their systems. Chaz was still in the hospital, in fairly serious condition, even if he was going to be all right. And as far as he was aware, Kim was going to be just as dangerous as he'd ever been, when they stopped sedating him. And here he was, back in the field, a couple hundred miles from where all this was still happening, because that's where his team needed him to be.  
  
Tonight. He'd call Langly tonight, and do his best to... something. Whatever Langly needed that didn't involve coming home on the next flight. But, Langly knew that. They both knew that. He'd call and reassure Langly he hadn't been shot, stabbed, or hit by a car, yet, and it said something about the last few weeks that it felt like such a necessary thing to say. And that was it, too. He'd barely gotten the stitches out, when Narcisse showed up, and Kim was only a few days later. It had been an unusually difficult month, and he really did need to tell Langly he was okay.  
  
And that was when he realised that _yes_ , the message had been strangely erotic, however interspersed with other thoughts it had been, but it had also been Langly's attempt to give him something to hold on to, some piece of what home had become for them. It was a slice of normal, probably meant to be listened to just before bed. And he wanted more than anything to be sitting at his desk in the muffled daylight, with Langly sprawled on the couch across the room, swearing at his computer and the whole world beyond it. He wanted that time to relax, to just be. And then he wanted to take Langly back to that big bed and provide a full-sensory demonstration that there was nothing wrong with him, this time.  
  
Of course, it remained to be seen if he'd return home in the condition in which he'd arrived. But, every case didn't go as badly as the last three. One he'd made a mistake, and the others he'd been the intended target, which wasn't a common occurrence, despite the past nine months or so. It was like it had finally caught up with him, which he knew was absurd, given the things he'd been through, but when he thought about Hotch, about Gideon, he couldn't help but compare. The job had gotten both of them, in the end, if in different ways. And in that moment, he could say he honestly understood why, but unlike either of them, as devoted as they were, the job had become as much a part of him as his hands. It wasn't going to catch up once he retired. It wasn't going to force him into hiding. When it caught up, it would kill him where he stood, with his badge in his pocket. Because if it wasn't him, it'd be someone else. If it wasn't him, it'd be him, but _young again_ , and he couldn't handle the idea of someone like he'd been at twenty-four having to face what he had, before he couldn't do it any more. And maybe that was selfish in some ways, but he'd always been inherently selfish about so many things. Things where he _had_ to come first, in his own judgement, no matter the expectations of sacrifice. It was why he was still alive, as far as he could tell. And there were times he felt like he shouldn't be.  
  
But, right now, he had to walk back into that building and make a second round of calls. The only way he'd be getting home to enjoy his living room and his ... lover -- and perhaps the first time he'd considered using that word for this relationship -- was if they could put a stop to the killings, here.  
  
As he came back in, nearly colliding with Prentiss, as she came out of the bathroom, she asked, "Where have you been?"  
  
"Smoke break," he replied, dryly, sweeping past her without another word, entirely aware that she knew he didn't smoke and he didn't smell like it. But, he also knew she'd take the answer to mean that he wasn't going to discuss it in the middle of a room filled with resentful locals.

* * *

"Do I have some news for you, my daring crimefighters!" Garcia chirped as soon as she could hear that she was on speaker. "I'm not finished with your preliminary list, yet, because this is like pulling teeth, but I did spot some names you should know about, because they are working for the Camden Police Department, and I think you may want to make sure none of them are working on this case with you."  
  
"It's such a blatant conflict of interest." Prentiss sounded surprised. "I'm sure someone would have caught that..."  
  
"Ooooh, well...." Garcia tsked before she went on. "Well, someone didn't, because right up at the top of this list is your Detective Angelo Natale."  
  
"Our _lead detective_ is now a suspect." Rossi did not look amused when he turned his eyes up to Prentiss.  
  
"Our lead detective is, at the very least, conflicted off this case." Prentiss sighed, fingertips rubbing the bridge of her nose where it met her forehead. "And Sanderson's not kidding. He doesn't have the manpower to tell Natale to sit this one out. We're back to being the federal bad guys, but we _have to_ have him taken off the case. There's no way around--"  
  
Reid's voice was loud enough to come through the closed door, and the words were sharp and icy. "Remove your hands from my person _right now_."  
  
"Oh, _shit_." Prentiss grabbed her phone and lunged for the door. "We'll call you right back, Garcia."  
  
Halfway across the floor, Reid held a cup of coffee that had obviously spilled over his hand, tinting the cuff of his shirt brown, and he towered over Natale, stiff-backed and hard-faced. His voice was quieter, now, but crystal clear, and there was not an ounce of mercy in it. "If you put your hands on me again, Detective, I'll be filing sexual harassment charges."  
  
"I'm not _gay_!" Natale protested, face twisted in horror as he stepped back, shoulders still squared as if he expected a fight.  
  
Reid's eyes flashed, the only flicker of emotion on his immobile face. "I didn't say you were. What I've said repeatedly is _don't touch me_. Your inability to provide me with even that _shred_ of basic human decency leads me to one inescapable conclusion."  
  
"Reid?" Prentiss stepped in, her eyes on Natale. "Come tell me what happened."  
  
"And _you_ get to come with me to see the Lieutenant," Rossi said, tipping a finger toward Natale. "for reasons completely unrelated to Dr Reid."  
  
Sanderson stood just outside his office, having obviously responded to Reid's outburst, but Prentiss and Rossi had been enough closer that he'd stood back, in case anyone else decided they needed to get involved. But, now, Rossi was herding Natale toward him, and Sanderson just looked exhausted and disappointed.  
  
"You want to tell me what that was about?" Prentiss shut the door of the tiny office behind them.  
  
"I _may_ have very slightly overreacted, but it was not by much." Reid closed his eyes, lips tight, and put his coffee on the corner of the desk, his hands closing just to keep his fingers closer to his body. "It is probably technically not sexual harassment, but had I been _you_ , it could have been. I also don't believe he actually had any sexual intent, but it was a blatant attempt at intimidation, and there's really only so much of that _even I_ can tolerate in the course of two days."  
  
Prentiss waited, knowing he'd get there, knowing he was judging himself and re-evaluating the situation.  
  
"This time, he put his hand on my lower back, which could have been a friendly gesture, had it been almost anyone else, but this is not the first time. We've barely been here twenty-four hours, and I've asked him not to touch me _nine times_. We've been in the same room a total of less than eight hours. Yesterday, he kept leaning over one shoulder and putting his hand on the other one, and it was _revolting_ to be touched like that, to be _breathed on_ like that, but I had no intention of giving him the satisfaction. I did still tell him every time but the first, which you _saw_ , to stop doing it. And the first time, I stepped away." Reid swallowed, eyes still closed, hands clenched and pressed against the middle of his chest. "I almost hit him, Emily. He came up behind me and put a hand on me, and I almost didn't stop myself from going for his solar plexus. I can't afford that. Not with OPR still looking at me. Not with everything I have _actually done_ , in my career. I can't afford to do this, and I don't know if I'm going to be fast enough, next time."  
  
When his eyes opened, he looked haunted, and more than that, embarrassed. "If you need to send me home--"  
  
"Natale's being removed from the case."  
  
The look in Reid's eyes turned to uncertainty, and he shook his head. "You can't--"  
  
"It's not because of you." Prentiss held up a hand. "Garcia just called, while you were getting coffee. He's got a conflict of interest a mile wide. He's a victim of one of the failed vests."  
  
Reid's spine straightened, the expression sliding off his face as his shoulders relaxed and his hands fell away from his chest. "Do you think he knew who they were?"  
  
"If he did, it would explain some of his choices in handling the investigation."


	9. Chapter 9

"You going to file a complaint?" JJ asked, as she and Reid went back to interview the rest of the restaurant staff they hadn't gotten to the night before.  
  
"It's not worth it. All I needed was to draw attention to what he was doing. Being observed with one hand potentially suggestively placed on an objecting federal agent should make him a little bit more cautious in the immediate future, which is about how long I have to deal with him." Reid looked dangerously brittle, if somewhat pleased with himself, as he watched buildings pass out the side window.  
  
"He's being taken off the case. His involvement with Levonel's vests combined with his decisions so far... There's no way for him to argue that it's his case, any more. He's left no room for Sanderson to hold onto him because they're understaffed, and from what I heard, Sanderson's _pissed_." JJ shook her head and rolled her eyes, as she pulled into a turn lane. "And the worst part is, I know exactly what he was trying to do, and _why_."  
  
"He could drag his feet on the investigation, and vicariously enjoy the revenge taken on the people who'd wronged him. He'd have to actually do the work, eventually, but it definitely explains why he's been obstructing his own investigation at every turn, and by extension, ours." Reid tried to stretch his leg, but caught the back of the foot well and banged his knee on the glovebox. He huffed and leaned down to shove the seat back. "He could have his cake and eat it, if he could arrest the killer after a more substantial number of murders -- furthering his own revenge fantasies with each killing, but still bringing this obviously incredibly competent killer to justice. Not that I think the killer's that competent, but they'd look competent against his own engineered failures."  
  
"Do you think he's involved?" JJ asked. "More involved."  
  
"Do I think he's the UnSub? I don't know. I'm not in a position to pass judgement, even if I had more information, right now. Anyone in my current position would be and _should_ be doubted in regard to what Natale might be capable of. By the time we do have more information, maybe I'll be better prepared to look at it objectively." Reid didn't seem upset about it. He knew exactly how irritated he still was, and while he wouldn't intentionally distort the evidence, it was probably going to be another hour or two before he was entirely rational. "Do I think he knows or is working directly with the UnSub? Well, he's definitely working indirectly with the UnSub, whether he intends it or not. That's the end result of the obstruction. If it is a friend, if they are working together... No, I think that two of them opens the way to more of them. This isn't the usual master and apprentice scenario, if it's more than one person. It's a vengeance pact. If there's more than one killer, they have all been equally harmed by the vest failures. There's not much reason to think it's multiple killers, at this point, but if it were, it would be a group effort."  
  
"I think we need to take a closer look at him. We always want to believe we're above that, that the police can't be killers, but we're looking for someone the victims would _trust_. We're looking for someone who's good-looking and believable, but who also has a strong desire to see Levonel pay for what they've done, most likely to them, personally. Natale ticks the boxes, and the badge gives him a way to easily separate people from their cars and their phones." JJ continued, as she looked for the sign for the restaurant. "And he's been doing the bare minimum that could be considered investigating. He probably caused evidence to be destroyed, when he released the scenes, even if he didn't actually remove it, personally."  
  
"Circumstantial," Reid argued. "He's definitely obstructed and possibly compromised the investigation, but he's not more of a suspect than anyone else on the list, at this point. On the other hand, it should be fairly easy to clear him, if it's not him, because I expect Sanderson's likely to cooperate, after this afternoon. And Natale's a detective, not a patrol officer, so it's fairly likely he was working--"  
  
"Spence? None of these have been while he was on shift. The last one was yesterday, and yesterday, Rossi saw him leave in a hurry."  
  
"I don't like him, and I question whether he should be working in law enforcement, but he probably just had a date." Reid shot a sidelong look at JJ. "This is what I mean about not being able to pass judgement, right now. I'm angry, and I'm overcompensating."  
  
"I'm just glad you're not waking up screaming." JJ glanced over at Reid. "Yet. Speaking of which, how are you holding up? This is... you could really, justifiably get a few days off, if you want them. Four attempts on--"  
  
"I just spent two weeks in a safehouse, _not working_. I really don't need any more time off."  
  
"I'm going to have to argue that point. You were in the safehouse working on an ACTF case that almost got you killed _twice_."  
  
"It didn't really. It almost got _Villette_ killed twice." And Reid looked guilty as he said it. He knew that should've been him. "And both times, it was people looking for _Frank_. I was just there so no one would try to use me for a hostage, which I guarantee would not have worked as intended."  
  
" _Spence_."  
  
"Okay, the one before that was ... also not about me, but I got directly in the way, very intentionally, and did wind up with a gun to my head," Reid admitted, tipping his head to the side.  
  
"I've only heard a little about that one -- ACTF case, so obviously -- but, did I hear you baited Villette's stalker by kissing him?" JJ's eyebrows lifted and her eyes left the road long enough to catch the way Reid looked down and then out the window again.  
  
"I don't know if you heard it, but yes, I did. Contrary to popular belief I _can_ rather convincingly pretend to be in a relationship with one of my co-workers, or did you forget that time you were my _wife_ for a few days."  
  
"I heard you slipped Villette a lot more tongue."  
  
"We're very similar, he and I. Not identical, but similar enough that there will be no misunderstandings. Similar enough in experience that we often think the same things at about the same time. We had to appear convincing. The Listerine made it only a small sacrifice for either of us." Reid shrugged, one shoulder barely moving, his eyes never shifting away from the street beside them. He didn't want to have this conversation, but maybe JJ could put a stop to any rumours Todd had started -- because he knew that had to have been Duke. There was only one living witness to what went on in that window.  
  
"I'm just saying, you are a lot more physically comfortable with Villette than you are with _anyone_." JJ spotted the restaurant and started looking for parking. "That night you shared the bed in Baltimore?"  
  
"No, I'm more physically comfortable with _Frank_." Reid finally looked back across the car. "And Baltimore was for _you_. I shared a bed with another fully-dressed person who had just saved my life, so that _you_ would have a bed to sleep in. I'm just... extremely accustomed to only ever being in bed with _Frank_. I _have_ apologised for that. To both parties."  
  
"If I was going to set you up with one of them, I'd have gone for Villette, because of exactly how similar the two of you are. And I know you love him, but I really don't know what you see in Frank..."  
  
"No, I don't expect you do."

* * *

"Harmon Williams?" the busboy looked blankly the waitress beside him. "I don't know anybody's name. Nobody talks to me -- I don't get to the tables until everybody's gone."  
  
JJ showed him a picture of Williams on her phone. "This guy. I heard he comes in here a lot."  
  
This time the busboy's eyes lit up. "Oh, _that_ guy. Yeah, nobody likes that guy."  
  
"Wait, who?" The waitress leaned over to look. "Oh, that asshole. The guy who leaves a _quarter_ for a tip, every time he comes in. I don't want him in my section. We take turns, because we're not allowed to throw him out unless he _does something_."  
  
"We spoke to some of your co-workers, last night, and they agreed with your assessment." Reid offered a small smile. "Can you think of anyone working here who might have been willing to play a small, harmless prank on Mr Williams?"  
  
"Why, did he file a complaint or something? Is he saying someone _here_ did something?" The waitress looked back and forth between Reid and JJ. "And why's the FBI care about some bullshit prank?"  
  
"Mr Williams isn't saying anything," Reid clarified. "Mr Williams is dead."  
  
"Then what's all this shit about a prank? People don't die from ' _harmless pranks_ '!" The waitress tried her best to get into Reid's face, standing on her toes and jabbing a narrowly-avoided finger at his chest.  
  
"We think someone may have asked a staff member, here, to do something to Mr Williams that appeared harmless." JJ held up her hands. "Something like putting eye drops in his drink -- it would be uncomfortable, but it's not going to cause serious harm. But, we think that person may have been tricked into using something that wasn't what it appeared to be. His death was not _caused_ by anything he ate or drank. We're sure of that. We're just trying to find a person who might have been set up to do something the killer then took advantage of."  
  
"Putting eye drops or laxatives in someone's drink is a misdemeanour, in most places, and we're not here to arrest anyone for that. We just want to know if anyone might have been bribed to give a bad customer a bad night. And then we want to find the person who _bribed_ them." Reid's hands went into his pockets and his eyes widened, honestly, innocently. This close to forty, JJ wondered how the hell he could still pull that off so believably.  
  
"Because you think somebody paid one of the girls to use a bottle of eye drops on this guy's iced tea, but it wasn't really eye drops, it was something so the killer could get him. So, whoever did the bribing's the killer, right?" The busboy nodded as if he were catching on. "And nobody who works here's getting in trouble, right?"  
  
"Not unless they're secretly a killer," JJ drawled. "But, no, we have no reason to believe the killer works here."  
  
"Williams..." The waitress drummed her fingers on the edge of the busboy's basin. "Why do I know his name? Where did I see..." Her eyes rounded suddenly, terror holding them open. "The Chiller Killer! I saw it in the paper! You think the Chiller killed someone _here_!?"  
  
"Well, not ... _here_." Reid gestured at the floor with one hand. "If you've been reading the paper, then you know none of these victims has been killed in a restaurant, and we have no reason to believe their deaths were directly connected with this restaurant or anyone working in it."  
  
"Just indirectly." The busboy shot him an unimpressed look.  
  
"Exactly." JJ nodded. "We think someone here may have witnessed the killer, and we'd like to get a statement about what the killer looked like. That's it."  
  
"Yeah, all right." The busboy held out his hand. "Give me your card. Nobody here takes me real serious. I'll say something and see what I get back."


	10. Chapter 10

Lieutenant Sanderson held his head in his hands, staring down at his desk. Everything about his posture suggested he'd taken some level of personal responsibility for Natale's actions, and Prentiss couldn't blame him for it.  
  
"I knew he was an Iraq vet," Sanderson said, quietly. "I knew that. It just never occurred to me that he'd have been personally affected. I guess I just always assumed most of those people died, and the rest were stuck in hospitals for the rest of their lives. I never even considered survivors. And to be living here, where Levonel is still one of the major employers in the area..."  
  
"I know it's difficult to imagine one of your own people could have mishandled an investigation, but we don't know that he's really done anything wrong, besides not trading the case to another detective. More than that, we weren't even aware that he _might_ have had a conflict of interest with this case until this morning. He was still at the crime scene, when we got the call about the connection between the victims, and I'm not sure anyone had _informed him_ , yet. It's been less than six hours. I'd cut him a break. You let him know as soon as you found out, and now he's off the case." Prentiss shrugged and sat down in the chair in front of Sanderson's desk. "It happens. We caught it quickly. And I know this makes things more difficult for the department, because you're understaffed, but as long as you can still lend us a couple of officers who know the area well, we can handle the case and make sure you guys get the credit for the arrest. Honestly, the less often we're in the news, the better things go for us. It's that much harder to be a random patron in a local bar, after your face has been on the national news in the last couple of weeks."  
  
Sanderson looked up, finally. "Like your Agent Reid. He was involved in that treason case, last fall. I remember the pictures in the paper of the three agents. One I don't remember very much of, but there was Agent Reid and that one with the long hair."  
  
"Who was a consultant, not an agent, but that's exactly what I'm talking about." Prentiss nodded. "Your department will get credit for the arrest, because we don't want it."  
  
"But, speaking of Agent Reid..." Sanderson cleared his throat and brought his hands down to straighten papers on his desk. "Do you know what happened between him and Detective Natale? I've never had any complaints of that kind in relation to Natale, and I'm concerned there's been some kind of cultural misunderstanding or something."  
  
"Agent Reid dislikes physical contact of any kind, and he's very quick to express that fact, but I have never seen him as outraged as he was today. He says he asked Natale not to touch him several times, and that sounds exactly like the Reid I've known for the last fifteen years. I'm willing to accept that this may be one of those places where people touch each other in a friendly manner far more often than people from elsewhere might be accustomed to, and that Natale didn't mean anything by it, but the fact is that he can't go around touching people who have asked him, particularly _multiple times_ , not to do so. An inability to adhere to the basic rules of common decency could draw other of his actions and decisions into question." Prentiss sat forward. "That's not a threat, but I think you know that. The fact that this happened at all becomes ammunition for any number of things, later, if it's not handled decisively, now."  
  
"What would you suggest?" Sanderson asked, looking across the desk as if he were prepared to warily consider any suggestions offered.  
  
"First of all, it's obvious that Reid can no longer work with Natale, but since Natale is no longer working on this case, that's not going to be an issue."  
  
Sanderson nodded. "I agree, both that the two shouldn't work together and that they won't be."  
  
"Regarding disciplinary actions, I can't give much advice. I don't know what your department would find appropriate in a case like this. Worst case, he'll end up suspended, and we both know you can't afford to lose the man, but don't let him count on that. Don't let him believe that he can't be held accountable, because you can't afford to lose a detective." Prentiss shrugged. "I really don't know what to tell you, Lieutenant, except that it's probably best to keep Natale away from cases that call for federal involvement of any kind, and see if that's his problem."  
  
Sanderson looked relieved. "I'm very sorry about Natale, but I'm glad we can be reasonable about this. You don't like to think the worst, but the after the DEA..."  
  
"The DEA steps on everyone's toes, _including_ ours." Prentiss held up a hand and shook her head dismissively, before she focused again on Sanderson. "But, understand that if Detective Natale comes close enough to touch Agent Reid again, I will support any action Reid decides to take at that time."  
  
"I can't think of a reason that would happen. There's no legitimate reason for Natale to be anywhere near your people," Sanderson reassured her.  
  
"Well... there is _one_."

* * *

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Natale turned on Lewis and Rossi, his eyes blazing. "You walk in here, try to ruin my career, steal my case, and now I'm a _suspect_? What kind of bullshit is that? I'm not a suspect, I'm a cop. I'm the lead detective on this case, or I _was_ until I had to call in you bozos."  
  
"We have to make sure you can't be the murderer," Rossi offered, with a shrug. "You're a victim of a famously malfunctioning Levonel product, and all the victims were Levonel employees involved in the testing and distribution of that product, which we just found out, this morning. You'd do the same thing, and you know it. Because it's the right thing to do."  
  
"You're fucking serious." Natale rolled his eyes and shook his head like he was talking to idiots.  
  
"It should be easy enough, Detective. Just tell us what you were doing on those nights. Did you order takeout? Maybe see some friends?" Lewis looked unconcerned, but her voice was firm. "There have been five murders, and we already know you weren't working when they happened, or we wouldn't be here asking these questions, but you know that if we don't, the defence lawyers will bring it up at trial. How can we be sure it's their client, when we haven't questioned the detective who also had a motive? No one wants the suggestion of a coverup, especially here."  
  
"Uh-huh." Natale stared expectantly at the agents, for a long moment. "And this isn't just you harassing me because pencilneck got his panties in a bunch. No, fuck this. I'm calling the union and getting a lawyer. I don't need this shit. You think you can just walk into my city and pick up the investigation I did the work on, and say I'm a suspect when you take the credit, like you did it yourself? Call my union rep if you want to talk to me."  
  
Natale slammed the door in their faces.

* * *

"Where's Reid?" Alvez asked, as he came through the door with bags of Chinese takeout. Everyone was once again piled into one of the motel rooms, but the bathroom door was open and Reid was nowhere to be seen.  
  
"He's in our room, trying not to have a nervous breakdown," JJ admitted, unpacking the bags as they hit the table. "He's fine. I just don't think he should be in the field so soon..."  
  
"Why _is_ he with us on this one?" Lewis asked, looking around at the rest of the team. "I wasn't going to ask, but..."  
  
Prentiss held out her hand when she recognised her meal in the next box JJ opened. "Because not working just makes him worse. He'll take time off when he's ready for it, and not a moment before, and any attempt to convince him to do otherwise or to make him take a vacation will be met with the next case he wanders into in the middle of that vacation, at best." She shook her head and pulled apart the chopsticks. "Did I tell you how he wound up hiding from international assassins for two weeks? He went to Nebraska to find a doctor for this rare condition Frank has, and apparently Frank's estranged family had gotten in with some shady types, about fifty years ago, and curiosity about something they found in the house alerted those shady types or their successors that somebody was looking into their old stuff, and a few phone calls later, someone tried to burn down the house they were staying in."  
  
"Fitzgerald was like that, too." JJ gestured with an egg roll. "It was his day off. I'm still not sure how he ended up with video of that abduction, but that's what started it all."  
  
"He's got a really well-founded objection to taking more than two or three days off in a row, most of the time." Prentiss lifted a shoulder and nodded sympathetically.  
  
"Didn't he take some time off, last year?" Simmons asked. "Got shot in the thing with the Air Force guy, that I wasn't involved in?"  
  
"That was Fitzgerald," Prentiss reminded him. "We were really just backup for the ACTF on that one. _Nobody_ from our team should have been involved."  
  
"He took time off because he couldn't get out of a chair without help, and I told him coming in might be fatal." JJ looked up and pointed with her chopsticks. "Because I was going to kill him."  
  
Simmons covered his mouth to laugh, trying not to blow rice out his nose.  
  
Rossi shook his head. "You think it's funny, but Reid is just... The time he went to pick up his mother's medicine and wound up in a Mexican jail, on a murder charge, because of an actual conspiracy to set him up. It took us, what, nine months to fix that? At least if he's working, when it happens, he has _backup_."  
  
"He _needs_ backup," JJ agreed. "The man is a perfectly competent federal agent, rapidly approaching forty, as he pointed out to me recently, and he's been on the job for almost fifteen years, but he just ... I don't know, _looks like_ an easy target or something. And the thing is, he's not paranoid. Sometimes, he sounds like it, but if you've known him for a few years, as much as he's worried about statistically unlikely things, he's worried about them happening _again_ , because those things have already happened to him, sometimes more than once. The guy is a lightning rod for this shit. Sometimes I feel bad for _Frank_."  
  
Rossi snorted. "Frank is compounding the issue, I assure you. And if Duke is to be believed, which is always in question if it's not directly related to an ongoing case, Villette's the same way."  
  
"So, what you're telling me is that we created a small team to handle special projects, and they all make anything they're near worse, just by proximity." An amused snort escaped Prentiss as she squeezed her eyes shut. "That's great, Dave. That's just... really going to end well, isn't it."  
  
"It's going great!" Rossi grinned. "They've taken down a corrupt military project and an international assassin. And they claim to still be working on something involving thirty-something years of non-consensual medical experiments. Can't argue the results of a team that brings the strangest cases in just by being in the same room, and then _solves them_."  
  
"Two members of their task force have been shot three times, and the consultant was abducted and tortured. I'm pretty sure I can argue this isn't going well."  
  
"They're all still alive, and for some reason, they all still like this job," Simmons pointed out. "And I'm pretty sure after the shit Reid's been through, I would _not_ like this job."  
  
Alvez held up a hand and leaned to the side to see Simmons around the corner of the wall. "That is because you're a relatively sane and rational person."  
  
"You're implying Reid's not." Lewis shot him a concerned look.  
  
"There is no implying. He's nutty as a fruitcake." Alvez looked around the room. "I'm not saying he's not good at his job! He's great at what he does, and I don't think he'd be as good at it if he wasn't completely fucking nuts, but he's completely fucking nuts."  
  
JJ nodded contemplatively. "He's got a point. But, I think the point also stands that Simmons may be the last sane person in the room."  
  
Prentiss tried to look disapproving, but she hadn't quite managed it before Rossi started to laugh.


	11. Chapter 11

And of course Langly wasn't answering the phone, because he was probably driving Jeanine Moore back to the airport. And Reid had a moment of concern about the fact he'd just lent Langly his car for the ... however long this case took. Not that he hadn't let Langly drive his car before, but it was _his car_ , that he took very good care of... mostly. Except the seat he'd been meaning to have fixed for four years. But, he'd have to take it into the shop, and it would take forever for the parts to come in, and it wasn't that he couldn't take the Metro to work, he'd done it for years, but the older he got, the less patience he had for other people _breathing on him_.  
  
He wanted to go home, he thought, as he got into the shower. He wanted to go home and lie down on his couch and pull the throw up to his eyeballs and just glare across the coffee table for an hour or two. He was irrationally upset, and he knew why, and that didn't actually help. He just needed to spend another day at his desk, at home. But, no, he couldn't stand another day away from his desk _at work_ , so he'd gone back, despite protests from anyone and everyone who mattered the minute he came through the door. And he wasn't sure when Agent Todd's opinions had started mattering -- maybe that was Villette's, not his -- but the man had caught him in the elevator and tried to talk him into getting back in his car and going to a museum or something. And he'd really thought about it, but the looks he'd get, if he did, the looks he'd get if he _didn't_ come back sooner than expected would be even more devastating than the concern he was getting now. At least the concern came with a certain amount of respect, as long as he ignored the uncertain awe behind it. It was 'are you sure you should be here', not 'you poor thing, we'll put you on light duty for a couple of weeks'.  
  
The water was warm, for now, and he intended to run it out. He'd apologise to JJ, later, but in that moment, he just needed to get everything off his skin. _Everything_. The lingering sensation of Natale's hands, the smell of burnt coffee, the way that one waitress looked at him when he gave his card to the other waitress... It had to go. All of it. He wanted to reach out to Chaz, to get someone who would understand this, and then laugh anyway. Black humour and black coffee. But, that door was closed, until they were both back in the same place. Until they could look at each other and know that it was okay. Because he knew that with pain or painkillers involved, Chaz wouldn't let him in, wouldn't reach out to him, unless it was critical.  
  
Great, he'd gone from boyfriend and half to zero boyfriend, while on a case he knew he shouldn't have come out for, after almost getting killed one too many times. But, the only way out was through, and he'd get there. The only way home was to find the killer.  
  
As he washed his hair for the second time, Reid considered Natale, again. The idea that he'd been doing the best he could with what he had was a fairly powerful one, right up until they'd discovered he was a potential suspect. Even so, why _now_? They had hundreds of people still living and physically capable of committing murder, in or near Camden. But something had changed, something had driven one or more of them to take their revenge _now_ , probably fifteen years later. Family members dying, a reunion of some kind, maybe seeing a news item about one of the victims that pointed out where they used to work... But, he wouldn't know until Garcia finished extracting data from various agencies, assuming they were even willing to identify people injured by the faulty vests.  
  
But, his train of thought kept getting derailed by memories of Natale touching him, the way the hand had always been a little to heavy, a little too tight, accompanied by that fake-friendly smile, that wasn't intended to be inviting or comforting in any way, but just to keep anyone else from asking questions. He knew he was supposed to have been intimidated by it. He knew it had been some sort of dominance play that he hadn't reacted to in the intended fashion at any point, and so Natale had just tried harder, become more 'friendly' with him. Except instead of bending under the pressure, he'd snapped. And he knew he'd done it before. This wasn't the first time he'd let the rage slop over the edge of his near-perfect composure, but it was never something he wanted to do, never something he meant to allow.  
  
He knew he needed not to be there. He needed to be home, with his books and his desk, and his couch. And maybe, just maybe, not with his boyfriend, as much as the thought pained him. He needed to put his head back on, and he couldn't do it, if he had to perform his usual reasonable self for anyone. and he knew he didn't have to, not for Langly, except that he did. Langly was another person in his space, and there was a certain amount of fundamental respect he deserved, and in that moment, Reid wasn't sure he could both provide it and put himself back together at the same time.  
  
He just needed a day or two alone, in the one place he'd almost always been safe, if one didn't count Narcisse or the mechanical murder spider. But, neither of those things could happen, now, because Langly had closed those gaps in his security -- things he'd never even considered, until they became exploitable faults. But, it was done now. It was all handled. And after he'd had a day or to to himself, he had every intention of expressing his thanks to Langly, very personally and very physically.

* * *

The whole room turned to look, when Reid walked in, damp and a good deal more relaxed than he'd been the last time anyone had seen him. "I know I said I'm not allowed to have opinions about Natale, right now, but have we actually considered him as a suspect?"  
  
"Hey, didn't think we'd be seeing you again, tonight!" JJ smiled warmly.  
  
"I told you, I just needed a shower. Badly." Reid gestured to his wet hair and took up a position just at the outer corner of the closet. "What--"  
  
"I saved you some egg rolls." JJ held up a waxed paper packet.  
  
Reid shook his head. "I'm not hungry."  
  
Alvez got up from where he'd been sitting by the coffee maker and took the egg rolls from JJ's hand, underhand tossing the packet to Reid. "She saved you some egg rolls."  
  
Reid caught the packet of egg rolls, when it hit him, by slapping it against his chest. He looked awkwardly at Alvez and then at JJ, and then down at the egg rolls. "Ah, thank... you? Is there any hot mustard left-- _pleasedon'tthrowitatme_!"  
  
"You're looking a little high strung," Rossi remarked, not quite looking at Reid.  
  
"Maybe it's because I just had egg rolls thrown at me!" Reid took the nod from Alvez to mean they'd trade places, and he dodged a couple pairs of legs to get to the counter with the sink and the coffee maker. Once he sat down, Simmons handed him a half-empty container of mustard.  
  
"I don't think we have an unopened one, but I was pouring that one, so nothing's been dipped in it."  
  
Reid looked Simmons in the eye, mild surprise registering on his face. "Thanks. But, back to the actual point I came in here to make, have we started considering Natale?"  
  
Prentiss groaned. "We've got two days before we can talk to him."  
  
"He called the union as soon as we showed up at his door, which was probably a very good idea." Rossi nodded and sat back. "The killings all took place while he wasn't on duty. Any rational person with a work schedule like his would be asleep in bed, when those murders were taking place. But, he lives alone, so there's no one to tell us for certain where he was, unless he _wasn't_ at home. But, of course, he isn't talking to us without his lawyer, which means the earliest we'll be seeing him gain is the day after tomorrow."  
  
"We don't have any evidence," Reid said with a shrug, taking a bite of the egg roll. He held the side of his wrist over his mouth -- both hands still occupied with an egg roll and mustard -- as he went on. "And we don't know if that's because there isn't any or if it's because he destroyed it. Either way, there's nothing to confirm him, but there's equally nothing to exclude him."  
  
"Or anyone else," Lewis reminded him. "Hundreds of people have a motive and we have very little, yet. I spoke to the reporter, though. Apparently one of the night guards called and let him in. The reporter described the man well enough that we were able to determine who the guard was, and that he'd been in grammar school when the Levonel hearings happened."  
  
"How did the guard know, though? None of the bodies have been found by guards. They've all been discovered by the morning shift." Reid was not going to admit that he'd gotten hungry the minute he'd actually put food in his mouth.  
  
"The guard's apparently been checking the insides of the warehouses he's able to get into, since he heard about the killings, a few days ago. He figured if he could interrupt the killer, maybe he'd save somebody's life -- and you know? I can't blame him, but I did have a word about how dangerous that really was." Simmons glanced at Prentiss. "And how incredibly stupid it was to call the newspaper before he called an ambulance, but he swore Cassidy was already dead. Said he could tell because the guy wasn't breathing and there wasn't any bleeding."  
  
"We know there wasn't as much bleeding as there could have been, but there's still going to be some, and with a wound like that, I'm not sure it would've stopped until the heart did." Rossi nodded his agreement with the guard's assessment. "But, with the temperature and so little blood, it's harder to tell when Cassidy died in relation to when we got there, or when the guard got there."  
  
"We didn't get notified until after Natale was on the scene," Prentiss pointed out, "and that was because it took that long for anyone to realise they hadn't heard anything about us arriving. We got there a few minutes before the ME."  
  
"The guard apparently called the police, after the reporter left, except he called from his cel, and the call went to _Philly_." Simmons looked a great deal less than thrilled with this turn of events. "So, I'd say Prentiss got called about three hours after the body was found, and the guard's estimates are somewhere in that range, too."  
  
"That's... not a great deal of time, for someone who left a restaurant at nine at night." Rossi looked around the room. "Are we sure the guard doesn't have a motive?"  
  
"Garcia's double-checking, but he's way too young for this." Simmons shook his head. "The guy's like _nineteen_."  
  
"How'd you get the reporter to tell you about him?" Reid asked, before taking another bite of egg roll.  
  
"The guard's nineteen." Lewis smiled and tipped her head, eyes sparkling in amusement. "He wanted to be famous for finding the latest victim, but the reporter declined to print his name, out of concern the killer might see it and decide to do something about it."  
  
"Ah, nineteen, when your first thought is fame instead of calling the police, when you find a dead body." Rossi smiled at Reid.  
  
Reid raised an eyebrow at Rossi, not responding until he'd swallowed. "I'm thirty-eight, and I was smarter than that at nineteen, if only because I've never wanted to be famous."  
  
"Says the guy who was all over television and the newspapers, last fall," Alvez teased, grinning.  
  
Reid shot him a look that verged on murderous, but said nothing.


	12. Chapter 12

Reid woke up to JJ brushing his hair out of his face and making wordless calming sounds. He'd kicked the sheets off and then tried to get back under them, in his sleep, leaving him restrictively tangled to the knees, his heart still pounding in his chest, breath still coming in loud, panicked gasps, as he swatted the hand off him, eyes still unseeing, until he finished waking up.  
  
"What--?" he blinked up at JJ, who looked exhausted and concerned. And then, "I'm sorry. Go back to bed. I'm fine."  
  
He propped himself up on one elbow and tried to untangle himself from the sheets, or at least get them off his legs so he could straighten them out.  
  
"Mob case?" JJ asked, reaching down to pull the corner he couldn't see from that angle.  
  
Reid shook his head gently, still tugging at the sheets not to look at her. "The one before that. He had a gun to my head. I can't talk about how we got there, but I can tell you how it ended. He got behind Villette. Don't ask me _how,_ but he got behind Villette, put a knife to his throat and a gun to my head. And then, when we got him talking, he didn't shoot _me_. He shot _himself_. But, those were definitely the longest thirty or forty seconds of the year to date."  
  
"Jesus, Spence..." JJ pulled the slightly less tangled bedspread up and slowly put her arms around Reid's shoulders, giving him more than enough time to stop her, which he didn't. "Why are you even in the field?"  
  
"I have to be. You know that." Reid made a small sound of muffled amusement. "It's like falling off a bicycle. You have to get back up, or it turns into an obstacle. It's just nightmares, for now, and I'm sorry I woke you up, but I have to get over it before I can look at it." He pressed his eyes against her shoulder. "I know you've seen me do this, before."  
  
"Yeah, I have, but it's the first time you've really been coherent about it." JJ stroked his hair. "If this is what we get for letting you hang around the psychologist from down the hall, maybe you should do more of it."  
  
That time, he snorted, tipped his head, and shot her a baleful glare. "I'm going back to sleep. You should probably do the same."  
  
She waited until he'd laid back down and pulled the covers up, tucking him in and brushing the hair out of his face, again. "I worry about you."  
  
"After the month I just had, I worry about me, too."

* * *

The next morning, Reid looked surprisingly well, after the night he'd had. He'd only woken JJ once, but he'd snapped awake a few more times at sounds that were probably the building settling, but set off memories of both times Narcisse had broken in. He'd finally given up around four, and by the time they were all at the diner for breakfast, he was three cups of coffee down, and he felt and looked almost human. Of course, he immediately ordered another cup of coffee.   
  
Breakfast was a terrible idea, and he knew breakfast was a terrible idea, but maybe he'd been spending too much time around Chaz, because he managed to convince himself that not only was it not the worst idea he'd had, in the last three days, it was potentially even a good idea. ...That had to be leftovers from Chaz, who he terribly, desperately wished he could once again check on with a thought, but after this many days, with the way Chaz was holding him back, it was like staring into an empty room -- nothing but the reminder of someone who used to be there.  
  
Which was entirely morbid, and not what he was thinking about right now. Instead he studied the menu, looking for something a little more interesting than fried eggs and toast. A note at the bottom of one page proclaimed that the kitchen would be happy to substitute the milk in any dish with coconut milk, upon request, and he looked back at a few things he'd skipped over, because they looked like way too much dairy for this hour of the morning. And wound up at eggs goldenrod, which seemed to be boiled eggs on toast in a bechamel sauce. It was either going to be good, or it was going to be one of those dishes that was ruined by the texture, and he hadn't slept well enough to figure out which. All the same, he ordered it with coconut milk, before the table descended into the usual public-facing conversations.  
  
"So, I'm guessing nothing happened last night," JJ ventured, looking down the pair of tables they'd shoved together. "We'd have gotten called by now. There's no one trying to keep us at arm's length, any more."  
  
"We'll find out when we get there," Prentiss said, taking the whole issue of whether anyone had been murdered rather philosophically. "I think it's mostly more phone calls, today. Obviously, we didn't get all the people we need to speak to, yesterday, so try back the ones we haven't got. I'm going to hassle the lab, and see if I can get a rush on some of the results. We're up to five, and I hope I can use that for leverage, but if they really don't have the people, we may be stuck, still."  
  
"Reid? Don't you know somebody?" JJ asked.  
  
"Ah... sort of? I know a good pathologist, but her speciality is fungus and farm accidents. She's also not at her lab, because she's, ah, assisting Agent Villette." Reid reflexively moved his coffee out of the way as a plate of eggs and toast smacked onto the table in front of him.  
  
"How's he doing?" Rossi asked, reaching for the pepper.  
  
"I don't know any more than the last time we talked about it. He was well enough to be arguing with Frank and Dr Langly about bringing in another expert to take a look at the, ah, subject." Reid cut a bit of toast, examining the pickle-studded sauce that ran over it and across the plate. He studied it, uncertain about the decision he'd made.  
  
"One of those cases, huh?" Alvez shook his head sympathetically.  
  
"Yes and no. The motive is extremely clear -- it was a matter of business, rather than anything personal -- but there are some... other concerns about the rest of the organisation and about whether the individual in question will be _letting himself out_ of his current accommodations, once his leg heals." Reid glanced across the table. "That last is the real concern, here. He's incredibly skilled -- moreso than Narcisse, if only due to the lack of emotional involvement -- and he's incredibly _believable_. There's a very good chance he could just walk away and disappear, as soon as he can actually walk."  
  
"That's some scary shit." Alvez shook his head again.  
  
"Is OPR still up your ass about Narcisse?" Simmons asked, holding up his cup for more coffee.  
  
"There's a few ongoing questions that need to be addressed, but I'm relatively certain it's almost over. Of course, I also thought that _last year_ , so..." Reid finally managed to put food in his mouth, and it was surprisingly good. The pickles kept it from being too much, and it didn't taste like coconut at all. He thought he might order it again, since they were probably going to be here a few days.  
  
"She broke into your house and assaulted you, and then she did it again, with witnesses, after escaping from prison." Prentiss leaned in to look at him around JJ. "I'm pretty sure it's really over, this time."  
  
"That and she's dead," Rossi pointed out. "And you didn't kill her."  
  
"And we have someone in custody who helped her escape and provided her with the equipment for that second attempt." Reid shrugged. "It's just paperwork, at this point, aside from Agent Grafton's psych leave."  
  
"The job gets to you, after a while," Rossi said, quietly, looking right at Reid, who was intently focused on breakfast rather than anyone at the table. "And that's why taking some time off before you start forgetting you interviewed somebody is so important."  
  
"I can safely say I've never forgotten I interviewed someone." Neither had Grafton, and Reid knew it, but he couldn't say anything about it. "So, by those standards, I've had plenty of time off. Also, the last time I was on leave, I ended up a target of an internationally infamous assassin, so I think I'm just going to give that a pass for the immediate future."  
  
"That's an incredibly rational explanation for an irrational dislike of taking time off," Lewis teased, with a sly smile.  
  
"It's not irrational," Reid argued. "It's a demonstrable, repeatable issue. Anyway, aren't we working on a case that has nothing to do with my entirely rational and non-pathological aversion to vacation time?"

* * *

"Yes, sir. I understand that, Mr Halston, but-- ... Mr Halston?" JJ blinked and looked at the phone, then buried her face in her hands with an irritated sound. "Can we please just let the UnSub have them?"  
  
Reid covered his mouth with his fingertips, looking a little too amused. "I'm not sure there's a 'let' involved, here. They're either going to take our advice or they're going to get murdered. There are too many angry people and not enough lab results for us to really do much about that situation."  
  
"How are we doing with the warehouses?" Prentiss asked, looking up from the guard schedules.  
  
Alvez shook his head. "I'm getting a lot of noise about the time it takes to reconfigure and then ensure all the current employees get the new codes. Pointing out that changing the damn codes is probably going to cut down on product theft and that gory murders are really bad for business is only going so far. But, we're supposed to get notified when the codes change on each warehouse, so we can take them off the list."  
  
"We just have to make the numbers manageable," Reid muttered, studying the papers spread around where he sat on the floor. "We have to be able to watch the potential victims and the warehouses, so we need smaller, but non-zero numbers." He looked up. "Non-zero, because the UnSub can wait forever, but we can't."  
  
"I hate this. I hate that we have to use the actual victims for bait instead of one of us, but there's no way to make that work." Prentiss leaned back and closed her eyes. "It's going to be hard enough to keep an eye on them."  
  
"I'd say we should use their GPS, but the UnSub's getting rid of the phones before he kills them." Simmon shrugged.  
  
"Do we know that?" Reid asked, pressing a hand to his stomach as he shifted position. "We know they're not _found_ with their phones, coats, or wallets. We don't know if those are dumped before or after the killing, and we really don't know _where_."  
  
"Off the end of the pier," JJ muttered into her hands, and then looked up again, dropping her hands onto the table. "We can't find them, which means the phones are either turned off or destroyed, and the closest place to dump evidence is straight into the ocean."  
  
"Do you really think it's that easy to dump something with all the ships out there?" Alvez asked, thinking about it. "It's a port. It's going at all hours."  
  
"Actually, it's not. Not all of it, anyway. The parts we're looking at are on a limited schedule, but it's true that doesn't account for how many ships are in port at any point." Reid looked contemplative, giving it more thought. A split second later, his face turned pale, and he bolted from the room with no further explanation.


	13. Chapter 13

"How's Reid?" Rossi asked JJ, when she opened the door.  
  
"He's fine." JJ rolled her eyes and stepped out of the way, letting Rossi come in. "Alvez went back to the diner to see if we could get a clue what went into his breakfast. Turns out the kitchen ran out of coconut milk and the cook was having a bitchy day and decided to put not _milk_ in it, but _cream_."  
  
"Ouch." Rossi glanced toward the closed bathroom door as the sound of vomiting started again. "He's going to be a while, isn't he?"  
  
"Oh, yeah. It's a good thing we had Chinese instead of Italian, last night, or I'd be more worried." JJ shook her head. "Really, though, he's fine. What's the news from the lab?"  
  
"There's nothing anyone can do to make this happen faster. We've already been skipped ahead of several cases, but living victims get precedence, for obvious reasons, so we're still behind about two or three days of work. I called Quantico, and we're not going to get a better turnaround if we send it home." Rossi shook his head. "We need more space and more people, everywhere, but you know what the budget looks like."  
  
"This is absurd. Five people have been killed in less than two weeks, and we can't get lab results?" JJ shook her head. "I know you're right. I know this is a budget problem, and that people who don't know how to spend money shouldn't be spending money, but this is just _stupid_. You think we can get a faster turnaround if we go with a private lab?"  
  
"If we don't have the budget to expand our labs..." Rossi raised his eyebrows at her.  
  
"This is how we _get_ the budget," JJ argued. "It's too expensive _not_ to let us have more staff and more equipment."  
  
"We may not be able to use the results in court," Rossi reminded her, gently. "If we go outside, somebody's going to challenge that."  
  
"We don't have to use it in court. We just have to get something to work with, while we wait for the official results to catch up." JJ dropped into a chair. "Dave, we can't sit around and wait for the labs. In a case where we had a narrower profile, something that didn't apply to three hundred people in the state of New Jersey, it wouldn't matter so much, but if we can identify the drug--"  
  
"Assuming there is a drug."  
  
"There has to be something, and you know it. None of them fought back, none of them struggled. There's no sign the drug was _injected_ , whatever it was, but if the UnSub can get it into their drinks--"  
  
Rossi nodded. "And now we're back to how this person is gaining access to the drink. No one's working at more than one of the restaurants. Did you get a call back from the guy at the one place, yet?"  
  
JJ shook her head. "Not yet. It's still too early. I just talked to him yesterday, and he's probably not going to call until the end of his shift, today."  
  
The bathroom door opened and Reid appeared, pale, damp-eyed, and shaky, looking like he'd just spent an hour throwing up.  
  
"So, ah... no Italian for lunch, huh?" Rossi teased.  
  
"What I really want is kimchi, but I have my doubts about that, _here_. Italian's fine, as long as I can get something that doesn't have _cheese_ on it." Reid went for the coffee maker. "Whatever that was, I shouldn't have had it on an empty stomach."  
  
"Alvez called. He got nervous and went down there. The cook ran out of coconut milk and decided to sub _whipping cream_." JJ shot Reid an obviously disapproving look. "And then Alvez scared the hell out of the guy and threatened to arrest him -- which he couldn't have, and we all know it -- but I think we're having breakfast somewhere else, tomorrow."  
  
Reid looked horrified, then offended, and then deadly calm. " _Whipping cream?_ Are you _sure_ we can't arrest him?"  
  
"Yes, Spence, I'm sure."  
  
Reid took a deep breath. "I know, I know. Did anyone pick up the files I was looking at? I almost had something..."  
  
JJ shook her head and smiled. "Left everything where it was, because I know better. Lewis, Prentiss, and Simmons should still be there."  
  
"You know me so well. Let me get through a cup of coffee or two, and we'll go back, unless you want to go with Rossi, and I'll catch up?"  
  
JJ gave him a look that suggested she had serious concerns about his mental health. "Pour me a cup. You're out of your mind if you think I'm leaving you by yourself for more than about ten minutes, right now. You practically have a target painted on your back, so no. I think I'm going to sit right here until you're ready to go back."  
  
"I'm actually out to pick up lunch," Rossi said with a shrug, "so I should get back to that. I just stopped by to see if you'd be joining us."  
  
Reid managed a grimace without parting his lips. "Yeah, I probably should. Just no cheese, if you're getting Italian."  
  
JJ nodded sympathetically and pointed at Reid. "Hooker noodles."  
  
"You're going to make me regret teaching you what that meant, aren't you?" Rossi sighed. "But, you're right, pasta puttanesca's probably a good choice." He looked up at Reid. "Chicken?"  
  
"Thank you." And Reid did look grateful, right up until his stomach made another distinctly displeased sound. He held up a hand. "I'm fine."  
  
"Then I'll see you back at the station." Rossi nodded and gave JJ one last look before he left. "Don't let him do anything stupid."  
  
JJ laughed. "Like I could stop him."  
  
"I am not going to do anything stupid!" Reid protested, irritatedly, as Rossi ducked out. "None of this is my doing!"  
  
JJ held up a finger, waiting for the lock to click. "Look, I know you said Dr Langly's not available, right now, but I seem to remember you know some other labs that may not actually be cleared to do work for us. Do you think we can get faster results while we _wait_ for good results?"  
  
Reid's eyebrows arced up and he blinked. "I'm going to get a cup of coffee and go into the bathroom to make some calls, because you absolutely cannot know, but I'll get back to you, when I have an answer. Or when I'm out of coffee."  
  
"You're the best, Spence." JJ smiled fondly, noticing he hadn't even had to ask, because he knew exactly what and why. And this was part of why they worked so well together-- after all these years, they both just _knew_.  
  
He wore his best faux innocent look as he poured himself a cup of coffee, and then another for her. "I don't know what you'd do without me."

* * *

"Agent Jareau? It's Jake from Santini's? You asked me to call you if I found out anything about--"  
  
"Williams! Of course, yes." JJ pointed at the phone and gave Prentiss an excited nod. "What can you tell me?"  
  
"Not a lot. Nobody's admitting to anything, but one of the dishwashers looked real squirrelly when I started joking about it. You might want to talk to Brad Hazel... something. Shit, I checked his name on the schedule, and now I forgot it. But, it's dishwasher Brad."  
  
"Dishwasher Brad. Is he still on the clock?"  
  
"No, but he's in tomorrow."  
  
"Thanks, Jake. Really appreciate this." JJ hung up and grinned. "Do we have a Brad something that starts with H on the list of people working at Santini's when Williams was killed?"  
  
"Hazlett?" Reid asked from somewhere on the floor in the back of the room.  
  
"Hazlett. That's probably it. Do we have an address for him?" JJ asked, just before the white pages thumped onto the table. "Oh, you think you're funny, don't you."  
  
Alvez smiled and fluttered his eyelashes, before going back to the call he was on. "Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you. Yes, you need to change the-- Today. Inconvenience versus murder, Mr Bentwick, which one is going to be worse for business?"  
  
JJ got up, sorting her notes for whoever got what was left of her list. "Reid, you want to go--"  
  
"No. Kind of busy." Reid gestured at the pages spread out around him, still.  
  
"What are you even _doing_?" JJ asked.  
  
"I'm shortening Garcia's list."  
  
"You know she could probably do it faster..."  
  
Reid looked up. "We're profilers, JJ. I have to read it all anyway. And the more of this I read, the more I understand the underlying mindset. There's a massive cultural gap between any of us and any of these people, and to some extent, it's that gap that makes them all look like suspects. We don't understand the pressures at the cultural--" He stopped suddenly, blinked, and stood up. "I have to make a call."  
  
As Reid swept out of the room without another word, JJ looked over the rest of the team still in the room -- Alvez and Lewis were on the phone, Prentiss was irritatedly texting someone, Rossi had gone downstairs to look for paper casefiles. "Simmons, you want to go--"  
  
"Get me out of here." Simmons was out of his chair before she could finish the sentence. "If I have to talk to one more self-absorbed ... words I shouldn't use while Alvez is still on the phone."  
  
"That bad, huh?" JJ raised her eyebrows, as if she hadn't also just been on the phone with potential victims.  
  
Simmons gestured toward the door, waiting until they were both out before he said another word. "These people are going to get killed, because they're too far up their own asses to recognise a threat that doesn't come with a dollar sign attached!"  
  
"Oh, I got one who understood it real fast. She'd already called in sick for the week and rescheduled everything as telephone appointments. She's paying a private security company to answer the door and make sure nobody breaks in." JJ made a face that could've been a grimace if it wasn't a weak grin. "Not thrilled about the beefcake with guns, but she'll probably live."  
  
Simmons looked at her like he was waiting for the punchline to sink in.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Do you know how many of those guys are vets?" Simmons laughed, as they headed out to the car. "Private security and law enforcement absorbed a lot of people who didn't stay in the military, and after seeing what those vests were doing..."  
  
"So, she may have just invited the killer into her house." JJ groaned, pressing a hand to her face. "But, we can't really advise that people not add guards. Without them, we're cutting down the number of witnesses to people who might be _watching_ the house. They're observers we don't have to worry about the budget for."  
  
"And even if she did, none of the killings have happened in the victims' homes. If she's got family, she's probably going to be all right, as long as she stays home. But, it adds more people to the list of folks she'd trust, in public." Simmons tipped his head and shrugged, holding open the door. "And we're looking for someone the victims find trustworthy and not frightening."  
  
JJ blinked at him. "Shit. Call Prentiss and tell her that. We've got a dishwasher to interview."  
  
"A dishwasher? I may be a family man, but I'm not _that_ good with appliances," Simmons joked as he pulled his phone out of his pocket.  
  
"I'm going to pretend we live in a world where you didn't just say that," JJ said, pressing the button to unlock the car.


	14. Chapter 14

"He's not home," Simmons decided, as he knocked on the apartment door one more time, for good measure. "We should come back in the morning. He's probably gone out to eat or something."  
  
JJ nodded, reluctantly. They'd been standing there for ten minutes, without so much as a sneeze from inside, despite the knocking. Brad Hazlett obviously wasn't at home. "If we have to wait for tomorrow, we can catch him at work. I don't think that restaurant's ever actually busy."  
  
"And you'll have Reid with you." Simmons raised an eyebrow at her as he headed back toward the stairs.  
  
"Or you could come with me, if you want. It's just a witness interview, and Reid's got another wild-ass idea he's not going to share with the rest of us, until he's sure he's right. And to be entirely fair, he probably is. He usually is, when he gets weird like this." JJ shook her head and shrugged. "I just hope he doesn't pull another Baltimore."  
  
"What, exactly, happened in Baltimore? I know he got stabbed, but I'm still not clear on how that happened or why Agent Gates knew before we did."  
  
"He went back to look at where the last body was found. Something about the space bothered him, and after getting whacked in the head, he doesn't remember what it was. But, he'd said something in the interview that made the killer go back to look, too, and Reid's not sure what happened, but he woke up tied up. And this is why none of us go anywhere alone. ... Except Reid." JJ sighed. "He's a genius. The man is an actual genius with more degrees than I'm even sure of, any more. I _know_ he knows better, but he has to pull this Sherlock Holmes shit where he's the only one who knows what's going on, until he's ready to share with the rest of the class. And his excuse has always been that the early versions of those leaps of logic are wrong, and he doesn't want to distract us while he tracks down what's actually important. I love him; I really do, but some days I wish shaking the sense into him actually worked."  
  
"He's everybody's little brother, isn't he?" Simmons observed, carefully not looking at JJ. "Even Alvez does it, and I'm pretty sure Alvez is younger."  
  
"He is." JJ nodded. "And Reid... I guess he is, isn't he? But, he was a field agent before I was, and he never treated me differently. Neither of us were supposed to be in the field, so he knew what that was like. And we're... closer, I guess, than either of us are to the rest of the team, not to say we don't care about the rest of you, or that you don't look out for us."  
  
"No, but I get the sense we look out for him _differently_." This time, Simmons watched JJ's face out of the corner of his eye. "Almost like he can't take care of himself, but that's not it, is it?"  
  
"No, he can absolutely take care of himself, up to a point. He's very good at arranging the situation so we can get him back out of whatever he's gotten into, so it's really not a lot of protecting him from the bad guys. It's a lot more protecting him from _himself_. He's brilliant, but I swear he has a limited concept of the actual risk to himself involved in some of his decisions. And what's worse is that I can't fault the majority of those choices, because he scared the shit out of us, but he achieved exactly what he intended, in a way no one else could have. He just takes years off my life, when he goes off script like that." JJ yanked the door of the building open and held it, eyes fluttering in dismayed resignation at some memory of Reid being, well, _Reid_.  
  
"Okay, but he's brilliant. Have you considered that he knows _exactly_ what he's doing?"  
  
"I would like to believe that, but most of those were desperation moves, and he _admits it_. And in the end, at least some of them were tactically sound, but he still does things like wandering off to a crime scene, in the middle of the night, without telling anyone where he's going!" JJ threw her hands up and let the door shut itself behind them.  
  
Simmons chuffed a laugh, amazed and amused. "And you're sure he's not suicidal?"  
  
The look JJ gave him could've stunned an elephant. "After the time he stabbed himself in the leg to avoid getting murdered, I've never been more sure he means to live through every last questionable decision he makes. But, you do need to know this, in case Prentiss leaves you alone with him. He'll get an idea and just forget that pursuing certain lines of inquiry might actually have consequences for _him_ , not just for the investigation. Let's just say I'm not going to be surprised the day he accidentally steps into traffic."  
  
"The absent minded professor needs a leash," Simmons joked.  
  
"It's why he's not allowed to turn off his GPS."

* * *

Reid came back into the room with the same pile of papers in one hand and a fresh cup of coffee in the other, looking entirely pleased with himself. He glanced around the tiny space and his brow creased in confusion. "Where's JJ?"  
  
"Out with Simmons," Rossi said, crossing another name off the list in front of him and staring at his phone as if he thought it might bite him. "You didn't want to go. She had to interview the guy from the restaurant about the drugs."  
  
"Right, right." Reid went to set the papers down and realised there was nowhere to put them. "Okay, so, I couldn't figure out how to separate the base psychology of an angry soldier from that of an actual killer. A lot of the flags are there for anyone who's been in combat, just because of the nature of the job. You train someone to kill, and, surprise, they're good at it, and they're desensitised to it, to some degree. So, it's been hard to filter Garcia's list down to more likely suspects, aside from cutting out the most obvious ones. But, just because I don't understand it doesn't mean it's impossible. Someone with more experience with soldiers and mercenaries could probably make the distinctions I was missing."   
  
He gave a small smile and shrugged. "So, I called Agent Todd."  
  
"Who isn't an agent any more," Rossi reminded him.  
  
"He's still a consultant, and the Bureau is still paying him." Reid smiled impolitely, and went on. "But, wherever he actually lost his fingers, he spent a great deal of time around armed men in various states of psychological decline. Which is to say he's a lot more familiar with the subject than I am. So, I called him and had Garcia send him what we had. And now we have a much shorter list. Notably, Detective Natale is still on it, but so are a great many people who went into emergency services and private security. There are a few I was surprised by, people I might have disregarded, had I continued to judge them in the manner in which we look at civilian killers, or, in fact, other former military spree and serial killers who aren't involved in _revenge_ killing."  
  
He sipped his coffee, looked around for somewhere to either sit or set down the cup, and gave up. "The victims aren't stand-ins for a target the killer is in some way powerless to approach, and they're not, as in the case of racist killings or prostitute murders, being made to pay for some largely imagined sins against the social order. Instead, these victims are people who, by their inaction, committed a massive act of fraud against the US government and in so doing, caused the deaths of hundreds of people, none of which they've particularly been held _personally_ responsible for. The company paid the fines against it and fired the people believed to have been most responsible, but with the severance packages in question, and the fact that their skills were still in high demand, the loss of employment at _Levonel_ would have had very little impact on their lives. The victims in this case are guilty of reckless endangerment, at least, and probably manslaughter. To the UnSub, they're guilty of mass murder.  
  
"So, we're actually looking for someone who's relatively stable. Probably involved in community causes or charity work aimed at protecting people from or rescuing them from the aftermath of severe failures of essential products. We're looking at someone who's very engaged with the world around them, fighting to prevent things like what happened to them from happening to anyone else. This is going to be someone who's regarded as heroic by one or more communities that's hard pressed to get help or be taken seriously, whether that's based on race, gender, class, or really anything else. This UnSub is going to have a lot of people on their side. Still, we're looking for someone in their early to mid thirties, most likely -- people who were on their first tour when they first encountered the vests. Probably people who watched others die from them, before being wounded, themselves. But, these are people who wouldn't have had the experience to handle what they were seeing, or even to know it wasn't supposed to work like that. The first experience of those vests is permanently inscribed across their minds, and one of them has finally found some inclination to strike back against the people who caused the problem in the first place."  
  
"It's a nice change from 'single, white loner, twenty to forty'," Alvez joked as he drew an arrow on the page in front of him. Call that one back. "So, this guy thinks he's a hero?"  
  
"No, but he'd _like_ to be one. _Other people_ think he's a hero, but as long as he has work to do, he hasn't done enough." Reid caught Alvez's eye and tipped his head sympathetically. The 'like us' went unspoken.  
  
"Does the 'he' mean we're assuming it's a man?" Lewis asked, holding the phone away from her ear while loud hold music played.  
  
"None of the women made it through the second pass. And as far as I can tell, it's not because they're women. It's because Agent Todd and I agree that this particular style of revenge killing wouldn't have suited them, the same way it didn't suit some of the men. There are men and women I wouldn't be surprised to find involved if the victims had been shot execution style, others who might lean more toward slit throats, a handful I would've raised to the top of the list if we'd been dealing with explosions. But, we're not. This is very eye-for-an-eye; it's retribution in kind. Unfortunately, the lack of survivors means no one's going to learn anything from it."  
  
"So, what are we down to?" Rossi asked him.  
  
"Fourteen." Reid held out the stack of pages, taking another sip of his coffee, which was doing an excellent job calming his stomach. "It's short enough to give back to Garcia. And if I'm wrong, somebody else gets to try refining the list. How are the calls going?"  
  
"You know how JJ asked if we could just let the UnSub have them? I'm really there." Alvez rolled his eyes and let his head fall back to stare at the ceiling. "I have never encountered a group of people with such a low sense of self-preservation. They really do think they can't get killed because they're rich. 'Oh, we don't go into bad neighbourhoods' and 'I hired some more security for our daughter'. I told that guy he'd be making the right choice if he daughter were at risk, but she's not. I can't get it through these people's heads that they can't go out to eat, that the killer is abducting people between the restaurants and their homes. I told one lady to just call out for Chinese, when she started in with the 'You can't expect me to cook for myself!' And actually getting any of them on the phone is a nightmare."  
  
"They won't answer the phone to unknown numbers, they won't call back if you leave a message, their receptionists are trained not to accept any phone calls from law enforcement, and to insist on an in-person visit..." Lewis sighed. "Out of fifteen, one is dead, and we've only been in touch with seven others, in two days. And I'm going back to calling about the warehouses. There's dozens of companies that hold cold storage down there, and... _three_ of them have confirmed they've changed their codes."  
  
"Five." Rossi held up his list. "I got two more callbacks since lunch."  
  
"Okay! We're narrowing the field, a little at a time. I'm going to go read some names back to Garcia, and then some of us should probably go take a nap, because somebody needs to be on call and more awake than I was, if there's another murder tonight." Reid nodded as punctuation.  
  
"Five bucks says it's Halston," Alvez whispered loudly.  
  
"You're on." Rossi shook his head. "Porter's next."  
  
"Which one was--?"  
  
"The one who probably hired the UnSub."


	15. Chapter 15

In the morning, JJ and Simmons went back to try Brad the dishwasher, again. They didn't expect to catch him at home, but it was between the new diner and the police station, so it wasn't particularly out of the way. And nothing she could say had convinced Reid to have breakfast, speaking of the new diner. Coffee, just coffee, he was fine, this was normal. She'd hoped yesterday was the beginning of Villette's influence, but she couldn't really blame him for not trying again. He probably had granola bars somewhere, anyway. She'd only rarely seen him eat one, but occasionally she'd spot the wrappers in the trash. Better than not eating at all.  
  
"Isn't that where we're going?" Simmons pointed to the building with the police car and the medical examiner's van pulled up in front of it.  
  
"Maybe one of the neighbours committed suicide," JJ offered, weakly, staring at the building in horror, and then staring at the street in horror. Where was she going to find parking in this? A quick glance up and down the road, and she double parked a car length down from the medical examiner's van, switched on the blinkers, and hopped out, already pulling out her badge.  
  
"Hey, _hey_! Move the car!" One of the uniforms shouted, approaching them. "You can't park here!"  
  
JJ held her badge up. "FBI. We're here to interview the guy in thirty-six. Brad--"  
  
"Hazlett," the uniform groaned. "Yeah, good luck. That's him now." The woman gestured to the bagged body being rolled out the front door and lifted down the steps.  
  
"How long has he been dead?" Simmons asked, and the uniform shook her head.  
  
"No idea. Ask Dr ... I think that's DiStanza, today.  
  
"Cause of death?" JJ tried, waiting for the ME to get closer.  
  
"That I know. Gunshot. The neighbour called because she came home and found a bullethole in her wall, and the bullet lodged in the front of her fridge." The officer shrugged. "Took Hazlett through the side of the head, and the bullet just kept going. I think the shooter thought the wall would stop it. Or his _skull_. But, it's not a hollowpoint. I can tell you that much looking at the holes. Something like a nine mil, which doesn't tell you shit."  
  
"Sure it does," Simmons volunteered. "It's not a forty-five and it's not a twenty-two. Anything between those is still in. Fifty's right out."  
  
"My god, I'd hate to think what a fifty would do to the walls in that place," JJ muttered, stepping out to flag down the ME before she could get in the van. "Just a couple of questions."  
  
Simmons eyed the uniform and gestured at the building.  
  
"Yeah, come on." The woman nodded and took a couple of steps back, before she turned around to lead him in. "I'll introduce you to Amaro."  
  
Upstairs, in what must've been the neighbour's apartment, an overweight plainclothes detective stood in front of the refrigerator, the light on his phone turned on, as he tried to get the camera to zoom in. He looked up and spotted Simmons. "Hey, you're one of those feds, right? Well, I can promise this one's not the Chiller. Body's not in the refrigerator." He grinned and chuckled. "Thanks, Satorno."  
  
The officer nodded and went back downstairs to help her partner keep the reporters and rubberneckers at bay.  
  
"Well, that's the thing," Simmons said, once Satorno was out of the room. "We were here to interview the victim, because we think he knew something about the, ah, 'Chiller'. One of the guy's co-workers says he thinks Hazlett saw the killer at the restaurant, the night one of the victims got killed. So, whatever you know, we're going to need to know. I'm not here to step on your toes or into this case, but whatever you find out might lead back to _our_ killer."  
  
Amaro nodded contemplatively. "Yeah, all right. We're all just trying to do our jobs around here, right?"  
  
"Trying being the key word, some days," Simmons shook his head and smiled, gesturing at the bullet hole in the wall. "Officer Satorno says she thinks it's a nine mil? Maybe something about that size?"  
  
Amaro waved him over and stepped aside, leaving the phone positioned where it was. "C'mere and take a look. Pretty sure that's a full metal thirty-eight, maybe a three-fifty-seven. Twenty-four years on the force, I've seen a lot of bullet holes and a lot of bullets." He pointed at the hole in the fridge. "You take a look at this hole and you take a look at the hole in the wall, and there's no sign the bullet expanded. Not the way it would if it was one of ours. That fuckin' thing went through a fuckin' four-inch stud, or it would've gone right through the fridge. No cartridge in the other apartment, so I can't say shit for sure, but it looks that little bit, that gut feeling bigger than a nine. You can't even really see it, but you get old like me, and you just get a sense for it."  
  
Simmons studied the image on the screen, ready to admit it was a lot clearer than trying to stare into the hole in the fridge without it. "Full metal? You think?" He glanced back at the hole in the wall. "Wouldn't it already have exp-- oh. Right. It wouldn't be giving an approximately nine millimetre hole if it had expanded going through Hazlett's head, unless it wasn't that size to start with, but that hole, this hole, they both look a little too even for that, don't they." He shook his head. "Holy shit, who shoots full metal _in the city_? That's nuts! You miss and you'll shoot the guy two doors down!"  
  
" _Easy_ ," Amaro agreed. "This guy's trying to make a point, or something."  
  
Simmons stood up and thought about it. "This guy _might_ be trying to lose the bullet."

* * *

  
"Yeah-- Yeah, no, that's fine-- Wha-- You know what, hold on a second." Reid looked up as JJ came in and waved her over, holding out his phone. "It's the lab. All the paperwork is in your name, but Frank gave them my number."  
  
'Thank you,' she mouthed, taking the phone from him. "Hello? Yes, this is Agent Jareau. No, that's fine, we absolutely understand. You've received the samples? That's great. Here, let me give you a different number to call when you've got results. You'll get _me_ , instead of Agent Reid."  
  
As JJ finished up the call, Simmons gave Reid the most resigned smile. "So, you're still carrying that revolver, right?"  
  
"Ah, yeah. That's my service weapon. I can't actually pass my qualifications with anything else, if you want the truth, so no I'm not switching to a--"  
  
"No. Ah..." Simmons sucked in a breath.  
  
"Are you kidding me?" Reid's face slid into hollow-eyed offence. "No, we're here investigating murders committed with a knife. A _knife_ , not a gun. You _have_ to be kidding me."  
  
"Our only witness was shot with either a three-fifty-seven or a thirty-eight, last night, probably right before we went to see him." Simmons grimaced and shrugged.  
  
"And if we want Natale to talk to us, I have to surrender my weapon to prove it's not the gun used on the witness, because otherwise we're playing favourites." Reid rubbed his forehead and squeezed his temples. "I am going to give you my gun, and then I am going to get a cup of coffee, because I can feel this headache starting in my _teeth_."  
  
"You should probably unclench them, Spence." JJ patted him on the shoulder and handed back his phone. "That's less headache and more your blood pressure. You're turning red."  
  
"You know the phrase 'adding insult to injury'? With the month I've had, this is adding insult to injury, four counts of attempted murder, and yesterday's breakfast." Reid took a deep breath, pressing the heel of his palm against his forehead, for the length of a deep breath, before he reached down and thumbed his gun into his hand, so he was holding it by the barrel, as he offered it to Simmons. "My apologies, that was completely unnecessary, and you didn't need to see it."  
  
"I'll be honest with you," Simmons said, holding out an evidence bag, "if I had the month you've had, I'd be on the beach with my wife and a drink with a paper umbrella in it."  
  
"I don't really like beaches. They're covered in wet sand and provoke expectations of an entirely unreasonable level of extremely public nudity." Reid deposited the gun in the bag.  
  
"That mean you've talked Frank out of the Bahamas?" JJ asked, with a lopsided smile.  
  
" _No_." Reid sighed.

* * *

  
Lieutenant Sanderson knocked before he entered. "I've got Detective Natale coming in for an interview, tomorrow morning. He's got representation. I know we have to do things by the book, but this is really upsetting him. I know what you have to do, but you need to know he's going to fight you, the whole way. I tried to talk sense into him, but he won't hear it." He held up his fingers. "I'm this far from busting him down to parking enforcement. I don't know what his problem is, all of a sudden. He's never been like _this_. He's a little obnoxious, maybe does some posturing, but this..."  
  
Prentiss opened her mouth, but Lewis held up a hand. "Lieutenant, your detective is under an incredible amount of stress, right now. Assuming he's not our killer, he may have imagined taking revenge, at some point in the past, likely soon after he was wounded. It's very likely the knowledge that this case corresponds to both a deeply traumatic experience for him and potentially to his own fantasies of revenge, is causing him a great deal of distress, and many people in distress act out in violent ways, whether physically or verbally. He's afraid, whether or not he's guilty, because of what this case brings back, for him. I would strongly advise psychiatric leave, once this is over. He's going to need help to get through this. And, at this point, no matter what you do, he's going to feel that you've betrayed him. He may choose to transfer."  
  
Sanderson shook his head, sadly. "Nobody's going to take him after this. Coming back to work after what he's pulled here? There's nothing I can say that'll get him a spot anywhere else in the city." He sighed and waved a hand. "So, I heard you're interested in Amaro's latest shooting? Something about the victim being a witness?"  
  
"Yeah, Agent Jareau managed to identify a potential witness from one of the restaurants, yesterday, but the man wasn't answering the door when she and Agent Simmons showed up to question him. When they went back, this morning, they found Amaro and a dead witness." Prentiss just looked tired. "Some cases are like this."  
  
"You haven't even been here a week, and you've only been present for one murder, and you've still done more than my detectives managed in the two weeks before that." Sanderson held up a hand and laughed. "It's a serial case, not a mass murder. I only ever worked one, but the guy killed nine women before we caught him, and that was pure luck that a neighbour saw something through the tenth victim's window and called it in. I'm not throwing stones. You guys are the experts. I just wanted to hear what you had to say about Amaro's victim."  
  
"We don't actually know if it's connected," Lewis admitted. "It's an unlikely coincidence, but it's absolutely possible the man had unrelated problems that led to his murder. The killing is unlike the others, but the victim is, as well. We'll see what Amaro comes up with. In the mean time, we're looking into some persons of interest."  
  
"I heard you already sent a gun to the ballistics lab, on that one, though?" Sanderson looked confused.  
  
Prentiss covered her eyes with one hand and laughed. "In light of Detective Natale's predicament, we sent Agent Reid's service weapon to be cleared. He carries a three-fifty-seven magnum _revolver_ , unlike the rest of us."  
  
"He's got a _revolver_? In the field? What is he, nuts?" Sanderson let out a horrified laugh.  
  
"Yes." Lewis nodded, not clarifying which of those questions she was answering. "But, he also shoots _very well_ with it."  
  
"Well, here's hoping you've taken that out of Detective Natale's hands, for tomorrow." Sanderson shook his head. "I wish I could convince him to just tell the truth and clear himself."  
  
"You wouldn't happen to know what Detective Natale's backup piece is, would you?" Prentiss asked.  
  
"All I know is that I better not find out he's carrying one. None of our detectives are supposed to have a personal weapon in the field."


	16. Chapter 16

"Garcia's got the list down to six." Reid tossed a much smaller stack of paper onto the desk that finally didn't contain lists of people who needed to be called. "Six men of varying ethnicities, who were seriously injured but not disabled in ways that would be immediately apparent, nor that would prevent them from working in jobs they already had the skills for, and who had traumatic events in the last six months."  
  
"Who's left?" Prentiss asked, covering her phone, which she then went back to. "Yes. Yes, good, ten o'clock. We'll send someone out there. Thank you."  
  
JJ stared at Reid expectantly, but he held up a finger and waited until Prentiss was off the line.  
  
"Okay, most importantly, Natale is still on the list. I'm almost capable of feeling bad for him, if he's not the killer. But, we're already scheduled to interview him, tomorrow morning. Natale was part of a protection detail for a senator, who'd come to speak about 'giving Camden another chance', at the national level. It turns out what she meant was working to clear some restrictions that prevented several companies in Camden from competing for government contracts. And, really, it _might_ not be a bad idea, _in general_ , but she wasn't terribly specific which restrictions she meant to dispose of, and no one was clear whether she meant _Levonel_ would be able to bid again, which as good as it might be for the economy, would not be a good idea, nor would it be a popular one. And we've got Natale in a position where he would have had to defend her if the crowd decided they didn't like her plans."  
  
"Why the hell is a _murder detective_ on a protection detail?" Alvez asked, looking away from the map he'd been updating with the latest warehouse information.  
  
"I'm not clear on that, but Sanderson probably knows. There's no 'why' in the paperwork, just that he was there." Reid shrugged defensively and moved down the list. "Joseph Winslow, thirty-four, private detective. Last month, his father, whom he lived with, died, leaving him with the remaining mortgage on the house. Winslow has been known to complain that the compensation to Levonel's victims was badly insufficient, because it didn't cover the cost of treatments he can't get through the VA, because they're overbooked, and the delay between treatments would be fatal, in his case."  
  
"That's a motive. He's under enormous financial strain already, because Levonel failed him twice, and he's just been saddled with another debt he can't afford." Prentiss nodded. "And add to that the Senator's proposal for Camden, which he probably saw on the news..."  
  
Reid nodded back, as he went on. "Martin Jameson, thirty-two, security guard. Two months before the first murder, he had to have even more of his bowel removed, after it re-perforated and he collapsed at work. We know what was wrong with him, because his employer has a copy of the ambulance paperwork, and we can confirm he had an unspecified emergency surgery at a nearby hospital. He was back at work before the first murder."  
  
"You really think the guy with a healing abdominal wound has the strength for this, just yet?" Alvez asked, capping the marker and leaning on the map. "I'd buy they've got him scaring the shit out of shoplifters, if he's back at work, but I don't know if he'd be lifting bodies that soon."  
  
"Don't know until we see him." JJ shrugged.  
  
"John Donati, also thirty-two, ambulance driver. Three weeks ago, the man he lived with, who was also a victim of Levonel's vests, died of 'complications' from his own injuries. Donati apparently showed up at the funeral angry, and made some threats, but he was drunk by that time. We have logs of a call to the police non-emergency number, in which someone from the funeral home staff said he was calling because he thought they might have a problem, soon. He ended the call saying someone else had calmed Donati down." Reid glanced around the room. "Oddly, I don't think it's Donati. He got drunk and said some inadvisable things at a funeral, which is... not unusual for a person at a funeral, particularly someone as close to the decedent as Donati was."  
  
"I'm not sure I agree with you." Prentiss gestured at Reid with her phone as she gathered her thoughts. "It may be normal funeral behaviour, to some degree, but if he's upset enough for that, he may be upset enough to actually act on that. Do we know who he threatened?"  
  
"Everyone he believed failed his friend, which does include Levonel, but also included the doctors at the VA hospital, their old sergeant, and the field medics who originally rescued them. None of the others have come to any harm." Reid shook his head. "I really don't think it's Donati, but he should be interviewed anyway. I _have_ been wrong."  
  
JJ squinted at him. "Who are you, and what've you done with Reid?" she teased.  
  
Reid rolled his eyes. "Alan Washington, thirty-five, bodyguard. About a month ago, his employers contracted with Levonel for armour plating for their vehicles. It's at once a great deal less overwhelmingly traumatic than what's happened to the others, but to have the company that failed to protect him once suddenly tasked with protecting him again..." Reid's eyebrows lifted. "He's been writing letters to the editor complaining that a company that has already sold dangerously bad goods to the armed forces is still allowed to sell similar products in the private market. In his mind, and I agree with him, Levonel should have gotten out of the business of armour and gone into producing bathtubs or MRI tubes, that it shouldn't be legal for them to be selling the same types of products without multiple third-party verifications of the integrity of the product."  
  
"This guy's got a much more immediate problem. This isn't something that happened to him or near him, it's something that's _happening_ to him," Alvez said. "He's at the top of the list, for me. It doesn't take a lot of squinting to see why Washington thinks he's dealing with an immediate threat. And, yeah, murder might be a way to stop it."  
  
JJ nodded along. "Yeah, but at the same time, the killer's not sticking to _current_ Levonel employees. It's specifically people who were involved in the production of the vest."  
  
"If it's Williams, he's making sure the vest's creators and the people who let the vest go into production can't do it again. The armour plating may be in question, but if he removes everyone who had anything to do with the vest, then the next generation of gear should be free of their influence," Prentiss speculated, tapping her phone against her hand. "Of course, that's not the way that works, but it looks valid on the surface."  
  
"Last one," Reid promised. "Christopher Taverna, thirty-three, works in Burglary, up near Cherry Hill. They recently took up a collection for him, at his station, to pay for another surgery his insurance apparently won't cover. From the flyers about it, it looks like it's not an immediately life-threatening problem, but the scars on his abdomen are shrinking in a way that's starting to limit his mobility."  
  
"Then it's not him, right?" Alvez spread his hands. "Like the other guy who just had surgery, this guy's not in good enough health to hang up a body like what we've been seeing. If he can't stretch his abs, there's no way he's getting a body up that high."  
  
"He doesn't have to get the body up that high," JJ reminded him, "he just has to get the rope up that high. All of them have been places you could throw a rope over, use it to lift the body, and then tie it off. Throwing a rope isn't going to require the same kind of stretching as lifting a body, and that goes for the other guy, too."  
  
"Six." Prentiss laughed. "We're finally down to six. Okay, we can work with this. There's no point arguing about whether any of them could have done it, if we haven't seen them. We've got Natale in the morning, but we can probably get a couple of interviews in, today. Probably have to wait until they get home from work, because these aren't office jobs, they're not a danger to their co-workers or clients, and a lot of them are in lines of work I wouldn't want to pull somebody out of the field in, unless there's a chance they _were_ a danger."  
  
"No, that's reasonable. Two guards, two cops, and an ambulance driver, you probably don't want to move, and who knows if you can even find the PI, if he's working." Alvez shook his head. "We'll get them later tonight or in the morning. You don't want all of us for Natale, right?"  
  
"No, but I do want _you_." Prentiss pointed at Alvez.  
  
"Hispanic masculinity, with a side of law enforcement?"  
  
"Yep." Prentiss nodded. "You and... Rossi?"  
  
"Yeah, we can't have Reid near him, he's probably going to waste time posturing if we bring in a woman, and Simmons is just going to piss him off." Alvez pointed with the marker in his hand as punctuation. "We need to give him stereotypes he's used to, something he thinks he knows what to do with, so he'll calm down. Right now, he thinks he's being persecuted, _because of Reid_. I'm hoping if we come in looking like we're not concerned, and keep acting like we just need to tick the boxes so he can get his job back, he'll chill out and actually talk to us. The union rep's gotta know we have to look at him, under the circumstances, so I'm not expecting a lot of pushback, there."  
  
"That sounds good, but expect to get jumped all over by the union rep, no matter what. You are still _technically_ accusing a police officer of multiple murders."  
  
"Technically?" Alvez shot Prentiss a sidelong look. "I think after what Reid just gave us, this isn't a technicality, any more. We're very definitely accusing a police officer of murder, or at least strongly implying he's a suspect. I mean, we'll keep it low-key, just to get him talking, but... At this point? Definitely a suspect."  
  
"It would explain the state of the investigation, when we got here," JJ pointed out. "I wonder if he timed them so the discovery of the bodies would be on his shift."  
  
"I'm still not allowed to have an opinion about Natale." Reid held his hands up and stepped back. "But, if we're going to interview people today, we should probably start working on that. Where's--"  
  
"Simmons is getting dinner." Prentiss's stomach made clear her own opinions on that fact. "Rossi and Lewis are at restaurants we can't afford, trying to see if we can find another Hazlett, so we can get a description of the UnSub."  
  
"I continue to have concerns about Hazlett," Reid admitted. "Who would have known we were going to interview him?"  
  
"You're getting paranoid, Spence. We don't know that his death was related to the case." JJ looked up from her tablet.  
  
"Yes, I'm absolutely a great deal more cautious in regard to any death connected with a case we're working, in which the victim _could have been shot with my gun_." Reid's eyebrow arced up as his voice betrayed his frustration. "I'm not sure that's entirely rational, but it's definitely happening. The number of coincidental relations between the two cases is extremely disconcerting."  
  
"Well, here's hoping Lewis and Rossi find another witness, so we can find this UnSub and _ask_ if they killed Hazlett." Alvez turned back to the map and marked another warehouse.  
  
JJ rolled her eyes. "Because of course they're just going to tell us, if we ask."  
  
"One more murder on top of the five they've already committed isn't actually going to change the sentence." Alvez shrugged. "We'll have a witness, we've got six likely suspects, and if we're lucky, we'll arrest them in the middle of an abduction. I've got my doubts they're going to be able to deny a whole lot."  
  
JJ shook her head. "Come on, Luke, how long have you been working this job?"


	17. Chapter 17

"Hey, is it true you guys are looking at Angelo for this?" Officer Taverna eyed Prentiss curiously. "Because I know the guy -- not a lot, I'm Burglary and he's Homicide -- but we were in the war, and he's not like some of the guys. He's good people. I'd be real surprised, you know?"  
  
"You mean Detective Natale?" Prentiss shrugged. "As you've pointed out, he was in the war, and he was the lead detective on the case..."  
  
The officer winced. "Oooh, yeah, that's not going to look good. So, what can I do for you?"  
  
"Well, obviously, we have to take a look at people who were injured in the war, and might be pissed off at the folks at Levonel," Rossi said, looking completely unconcerned. "You're a cop. You know. But, we also want to ask your opinions about people you might've met in support groups or getting treatment for similar injuries. Like you said, you don't think Natale's good for it, but maybe somebody else might be. We've got a huge list of people we're trying to narrow down."  
  
"Okay, first off, I'm not good for it, either." Taverna looked back and forth between them. "And I'll prove it to you. Give me a range, and I'll have my hours sent up to you. These were all late-night, right? I can almost guarantee you I was on shift for them. Almost. I might've had a day off, somewhere, but I work graveyards. There's no _way_ I could get away for as long as it takes to abduct and kill somebody. Between the paperwork and the people whose alarms go off every time their cat sneezes, I'm lucky I have the time to take a piss."  
  
"Wouldn't the alarm company get the first call?" Prentiss asked, curious.  
  
"Oh, sure, but then they can't raise the owner, so they call it in to us. I'm telling you like a good forty percent of our calls are set off by people's pets or windows that don't close right. I get to go out and tell little old ladies that the burglar scratching at the window is really a tree in the back yard, maybe give them the number of a few good arborists. Sometimes, you gotta help people solve their own problems, but some people don't do shit, no matter how you tell them." Taverna sighed and checked his watch. "Sorry, I gotta be on the clock in like two hours."  
  
"Oh, pssh. We won't keep you that long." Rossi shook his head and smiled. "So, I saw the paper back at the station about your surgery. You ever think about the Bureau, we've got better insurance. What's that about, anyway? Seems like exactly the kind of thing that's supposed to be covered."  
  
"Right? But, they're telling me they only cover physical therapy and creams for skin tightening. My doctor's trying to fight with them, but I'm probably going to have to pay out of pocket and then get reimbursed when they're _fucking wrong_."  
  
"So, you must be pretty pissed about that." Prentiss nodded agreeably. "I'd be."  
  
"I know what you're asking me. Am I pissed enough to kill somebody? Sure. But, if I lose my shit, I'm going after insurance execs." Taverna laughed and shook his head. "And probably with a _gun_. There's no way I could carry somebody and hang them up like it says in the paper. I'm going to be riding a desk, by next month, until I have the surgery and finish recovering from it, because that's when I have to pass my annual physical, and it's not going to happen. So, you know, you get a call about some serial killer shooting insurance execs, look me up. Until then, it's not me. I'm too sick for this shit."  
  
Rossi chuckled. Points for honesty, with this one, and the grief in his eyes was real. He was upset, but he was upset that he knew he _couldn't_ have committed the murders. "All right, enough about you. Who else do you remember? Anybody you remember being ... a little off?"

* * *

"Mr and Mrs Fed." Alan Washington held the door open for them, and ran a hand over his close-cropped hair. "Yeah, when I saw that thing in the paper, I thought I might be seeing you people soon. You must be talking to every one of us who still has a job with a gun."  
  
"Considering none of the victims were shot, it's not just guns we're looking at." Reid shrugged, hands still in his pockets, his shoulders never quite making it all the way back down.  
  
"You gonna have to excuse me. I'm right in the middle of dinner, and I do have to eat. You want a coffee or something?" Washington closed the door and led the way into the next room, a large kitchen with a table at one end.  
  
"Thanks, but I think we're all right." JJ held up a hand, and then used it to pull out a chair and sit. "So, obviously, you know what we're doing here. Let's get the obvious out of the way, first."  
  
"What was I doing on the nights of the murders? You probably already know I've got the experience necessary to get into those warehouses. That's what I was doing in Afghanistan -- I could break into anywhere, and the Army needed some more people who could get through doors without shooting them off the hinges." Washington held up a finger and took a big bite of chicken.  
  
Watching him, Reid was intensely glad he'd eaten, before he came out, because as little as he ate, watching someone else eat was making him seriously consider another meal. Also that looked like really good chicken. And that had to be remnants from having been so close to Chaz, these last few months. This really wasn't like him at all.  
  
"Still didn't do it. That one that was in the paper, I was at a charity event with a client, all night. I don't know when the others were, but it's been wall-to-wall, the last couple of weeks. I'll call my boss and tell him not to argue with you about it. I don't know if I was working for all of them, but I was probably working for _enough_ of them." Washington took another bite of chicken, looking as if he were accustomed to being watched while he ate.  
  
"Speaking of your boss, I heard the company you work for's buying armour plating for the cars from Levonel." JJ watched Washington stop chewing for a few seconds. "That decision couldn't have gone over well with you."  
  
Washington shook his head until he finished chewing. "You know what I did about that? I wrote letters to the newspaper. I wrote a whole thing for my bosses about what happened back in Afghanistan, with Levonel's gear. Got the press clippings and everything in there. And I said, 'Do not do this.' I said, 'Saving money is going to cost lives.' And they did it anyway, but they put aside one of the old cars for me, because I'm a veteran, and they said they could understand my concerns, but they had to get the new cars done, and after this many years and that kind of scandal, Levonel must've straightened up their act. And on the one hand, I know if somebody gets hurt when those plates don't work like they're supposed to, it should be me, because it's already been me, but I just can't do it again, so I took the old car, and I'm still yelling about it. Besides, the math ain't good. Even if I take one of the new ones, there's enough of us, enough cars, that it's not gonna be me, anyway. And I gotta worry about the clients, too. Nah, I'll take the old car."  
  
"I think that's really the wise choice, here. There's nothing to be gained in putting yourself in the line of fire, in this particular fashion." Reid gave Washington a knowing look, and something unspoken passed between them.  
  
JJ just stared at the side of Reid's head for a long moment, wanting to tattoo those words across the insides of his eyelids, so they'd be like some sort of subliminal message every time he blinked. Turning back to Washington, she asked, "With the trial and everything, do you remember anything about specific people who worked for Levonel?"  
  
"I remember they were all dicks. Every last one of them. Everything was about _money_. And you look at the size of the settlement, the total settlement, and you think that's a whole lot of money, and they must have meant to do right by us, but you know what it came out to? Three hundred dollars, each. Five hundred to the families of anyone who died in the field. And they still argued it was too much. They argued it down that far, and the judge wouldn't let it go any lower, but they said it was because we were soldiers, and we went out _expecting_ to die." Washington made a disapproving noise and shifted in his seat. "Assholes. Every last one. Still didn't kill 'em."  
  
"Can you think of anyone who might have?" Reid asked. "Maybe someone you met in the hospital?"

* * *

That night, Langly called, and Reid stepped outside to take it, going down to sit in the car, before he remembered Langly's paranoia that every government vehicle was wired for sound. So, he stood outside in the cold night air, feeling the way it stabbed at the still-fresh scar along the inside of his arm. He kept that arm close, holding the phone in the other hand.  
  
"I've missed you," he said, for probably the third time, and he hated the way the words sounded, the way they tasted in his mouth.  
  
"Yeah, well, it's a good thing, because I miss you, too, and you know what that means."  
  
He could hear the way the words caught on Langly's teeth, could almost see that lopsided grin. "I can't wait to come home. It hasn't even been a week. I'm--"  
  
"Stressed as hell?" Langly coughed out a laugh. "Reid, you're not even supposed to be at work. You know that. I know that. Villette _really_ knows that. But, you're like me. You just can't quit, can you?"  
  
"No. I can't. There's nothing in the world--" And Reid stopped, suddenly, aware of what he was saying and who he was saying it to.  
  
"Yeah, I know. Tell it to the newspaper I married." Langly made a small sound of amusement. "I know you. This isn't you. What the hell happened out there?"  
  
"One of the locals..." He stopped himself. "It's not important. It's _really_ not important."  
  
"The hell it's not." Langly sounded furious, that dead cold he got sometimes, and the sound of the keyboard was suddenly audible, which said he was that kind of angry, and Reid knew it wasn't at him.  
  
"Frank, leave it."  
  
"No."  
  
Reid's voice turned strident with panic. "Leave it alone. We're in the middle of an investigation, and you can't get your fingers caught in it, do you hear me? Do not do whatever you're about to do."  
  
The typing stopped suddenly. " _He did what to you?_ "  
  
"It was a poor attempt at intimidation, and I got tired of it. That's _all_."  
  
"Then why does this say--"  
  
"Because it was the fastest way to make it stop." Reid held his lip in his teeth, waiting.  
  
"You're _sure_."  
  
"I'm sure."  
  
Another sound of amusement. "Nice. That's a good move. I'm gonna have to remember that one."  
  
Reid finally remembered to breathe.  
  
"Day after tomorrow, you should call Villette," Langly suggested, "which is actually what I called to tell you. That and how much I want your hot body, but you already know that, so it's just a reminder."  
  
"The day _after_ tomorrow? Why not tomorrow?"  
  
"Because he's bailing on the hospital tomorrow, and he's probably going to sleep like he's dead, when he gets home." There was a long, sticky pause. "He, ah... You two haven't been... So, I'm calling to tell you he's okay, because he's not going to. Something about it not being right, because you're in the middle of a case, which is bullshit, because you're stressed as hell, and I know some of that's about him."  
  
"Frank?"  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"Thank you."


	18. Chapter 18

It was six, and for once, Reid was just waking up. He'd spoken to Langly for long enough, the night before, that his fingers had turned purple from the chill, and when he got back in, he'd managed to fall asleep without a single panicked thought, besides the one about whether he'd ever be able to feel his fingertips again. And his dreams were intense and magnificent, and he couldn't remember quite how any of them went, except for the bright colours and the muted light, and the incredible joy of having Langly's hair wrapped around his fingers.  
  
But, his phone was ringing, and it was Prentiss, and he knew he should've been up half an hour ago.  
  
"Hmrr?" he queried, trying to work up enough spit to make words.  
  
"Are you _sleeping_?" Prentiss sounded two parts surprised and one part horrified.  
  
"Obviously I needed it, but no. I'm ... definitely awake now." Reid swung his legs out of bed and got up to make a pot of coffee. "Another victim?"  
  
"Yeah, this one's not at the docks, though. It's definitely ours, but it's a refrigerated storage for fur coats. No shipping, so no docks."  
  
"Fur storage?" Reid tried to wrap his mind around it as he stared pitifully at the coffee maker, willing it to work faster. "In Camden?"  
  
"Cherry Hill, but it's obviously ours. Hung up the same way as the others, disembowelled. Fortunately, the coats are bagged." Prentiss chuffed in amusement. "I've got the call log pulled up, and the shop owner actually _said_ that."  
  
"People shut down in strange ways, after they find a body. His concerns are probably for the very angry customers who will want to get their coats out in a condition other than bloodstained. He's contextualising it in terms of how it affects him, directly." Reid pulled the pot out of the way and stuck his cup under the drip. "I know you need Alvez and Rossi to interview Natale, so I'm assuming I should take care of this? Who goes with me?"  
  
"I need JJ-- No I don't, I need Tara. Sorry, I got up about fifteen minutes ago, myself. Take JJ with you. I know the two of you won't step on each others' toes."  
  
"You're keeping Lewis in case you have to surprise him. You want her there because you can't use me."  
  
"Pretty much. Also, she's a woman, and if I have to go in there, I want to make sure he's unsettled and isolated."  
  
"You're seriously considering him a suspect, at this point."  
  
"Unless these guys are all working together, we cleared two people, last night. We still don't know where Natale was during any of the murders. And sure enough, he's got a file full of commendations from the community for going the extra step. He fits the profile, Reid."

* * *

"So, you were home alone during the time of all the killings." Rossi nodded as if this were unfortunate, but not actually concerning. "When we catch this guy, the defence is going to take us apart in court."  
  
"I work _mornings_." Natale huffed, and shoved a hand through his short hair, hair that looked like it was starting to grow out from how he usually wore it, and was obviously annoying him, with its length. "What do you want me to say? Where was I between ten and two? I was probably _in bed_. Because that's where I always am, at that time. Maybe you should ask my neighbours. They seem to have a real good idea when I'm home, to judge by the amount of banging on the wall and yelling about the noise they do."  
  
"What noise would that be?" Rossi asked, curiously.  
  
"The noise of _living_. Wood floors, thin walls. I flush the toilet, and they start." Natale looked like it was just one more thing on top of everything else.  
  
"You should get yourself a good rug," Alvez suggested. "I know a guy with a problem like that, and he swears the rugs help. Not really going to help much with the toilet, though."  
  
"Where were you last night?" Rossi asked, and Natale's eyes suddenly focused on him.  
  
"Well, I sure as hell wasn't anywhere near the docks. Couldn't sleep, so I went for a drive in Philly." Natale studied Rossi's face, looking for a crack. "You found another one? You're wasting all this time on me, and there's a _killer_ out there."

* * *

"It's the same as the others," Reid declared, standing just far enough away that the ME wouldn't get on his case for contaminating the body. The scene techs had finally finished the first sweep of the area, meaning he could finally get close enough to look. The coat storage was much smaller than the warehouses on the docks.  
  
The body was again bound, wrists to ankles, and suspended -- this time from the bar, where coats had been pushed aside to make room. When they arrived, the owner had been yelling at one of the officers about the fact that the coats weren't supposed to be 'mashed together like that', and they needed to hurry up and get the body out, so he could make sure none of them had gotten flattened. But, the coats were clear of the mess, any spray having missed the bags they were hung in. The worst of it was, as usual, on the floor.  
  
But, there were no flung organs, this time, Reid realised, as he crouched down for a closer look. "Except everything's here."  
  
"He's getting better at it." JJ came closer, from the other side, avoiding the pool of blood that ran toward a drain. "Remember the pictures from the first one? Rage. Everything was flung all over the place. Evisceration, not just disembowelment. Every one of them, since, has been cleaner than the one before it."  
  
"Increased control." Reid looked up at the body, an elderly woman, long since dead. "Not just an increase in skill, but a decrease in the level of violence. He's not throwing a tantrum, any more. He's reverting to training. That's incredibly unusual, but we're probably looking for someone who's begun to dissociate, at least during the killings."

* * *

"So, if you went over the bridge, then we should be able to pull the EZ Pass logs and find you. _That_ might be an alibi." Alvez grinned triumphantly at Natale. "You see? You've just got to give us something to work with."  
  
Watching the video feed from the next room, Lewis glanced at Prentiss. "It would be, if there were a toll both ways, but there's not. There's only a toll _leaving_ New jersey. He could've turned around and come right back."  
  
Prentiss took her phone out of her pocket and made a call.  
  
"Office of Utmost Excellence, what kind of excellence do you need from me today?"  
  
"Garcia, I need you to pull last night's EZ Pass logs from the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. We're looking for Angelo Natale. And then check the cameras on the other side, and see if you can figure out when he crossed back."  
  
"i will... have that for you in a couple of hours. Call you back when I know?"  
  
"Thanks."

* * *

"The interesting thing, here, is that there was a brief power outage that disabled the security system, and given the small amount of damage, it looks like the lock may have been picked during that time." Reid studied the coats around him. "The UnSub had to know he'd have a limited time, before the generator started. A place like this has to have backup power."  
  
"So he kills the main power, comes in, and... what? How does he get the victim in that fast?" JJ looked around the room, what of it could be seen around the coats. "He didn't, did he? He turned off the power, came in alone, and shut off the security system, or at least the cameras."  
  
"Then turned the main power back on, when he went out to bring in the victim. The generator only registers the outage lasting for a couple of minutes. Normally, that shouldn't be concerning, but someone obviously got in before the generator kicked in, and was prepared to disarm the alarm and turn off the cameras. That's incredibly fast work." Reid pulled his jacket closed and zipped it, the chill finally taking its toll.  
  
"You're thinking Washington, aren't you?"  
  
"Except it can't _be_ Washington, unless he's only guilty of this killing." Reid shook his head. "He's on video in rooms with dozens of witnesses, during the time of almost all of the others. And we don't know where he was last night, after we left him, so even this may not be him. I don't think it's Washington. Besides, the locks here aren't electronic."  
  
"And now the real question: Why aren't we on the docks?" JJ tucked her hands under her arms, trying to keep them warm. "Did we fix too many warehouses?"  
  
"Or did someone know we'd be trying to narrow the field? That we'd be waiting at the last warehouses that could be used?"  
  
"Or did they just guess?" JJ shrugged. "Maybe the reporter spooked them."  
  
Reid shook his head. "Not directly. They were long gone before the reporter got there. The guard was there first, and he didn't see anyone but the victim. But, the attention that might have been brought to the area by the story could've played a role. The UnSub may have just been trying to avoid the curiosity-seekers drawn in by the article. After all, if we're right, the docks themselves are less important than the temperature, which is fairly easily achieved elsewhere."  
  
"Fur coat storage, though, and not a restaurant refrigerator," JJ pointed out, rubbing her hands together for warmth. "It's not as big as the warehouses down at the docks, but it's still mass storage. It's not the same kind of storage as a refrigerator?"  
  
"Enough restaurants are still open at the time the UnSub's abducting the victims. Everywhere victims have been found has been closed by ten, and most restaurants are as well, but a restaurant that's closed at ten still has staff until ten-thirty or eleven. According to the sign on the door, the shop out front closes at six." Reid flicked open Chaz's lighter in his jacket pocket, lit it for a few seconds, and snapped it shut again, warming the pocket nicely. He'd have to get one of his own, at some point. Of all the things he carried regularly, he'd never even considered a lighter, but he was coming to appreciate it. "So, we need to be looking at anywhere that has refrigerated storage and is closed by about an hour after the victim leaves the restaurant. Which means that some restaurants are probably still on the list. Anywhere that's closed before dinner, and now that we're looking in Cherry Hill..."  
  
"That place we went for breakfast closes at two," JJ reminded him, as she backed toward the end of the row, hoping Reid would follow. They'd been standing in a refrigerator long enough that her fingers were turning purple, and she was sure some of Reid's scars ached, not that he'd say a word about it.  
  
"I think we should go again, tomorrow," Reid decided, taking a last look around the now-stripped scene, before he reluctantly followed JJ toward the door.  
  
JJ opened the door that led back into the shop and held it for Reid, despite the owner's sudden shouting about climate control and the humidity exchange. Really, she thought, most of the damage to the humidity would've been blood and urine. Holding the door _now_ wasn't really going to make it any worse.  
  
"You didn't even eat breakfast," she said to Reid.  
  
"No, but the coffee wasn't terrible, and who knows, maybe we'll be first on scene."


	19. Chapter 19

"Take me off speaker," were the first words out of Garcia's mouth, when Prentiss answered the phone.  
  
"You're not on speaker," Prentiss promised. "What do you have?"  
  
She and Lewis were still watching the interview room, where Alvez, Rossi, Natale, and the lawyer were having lunch together. Alvez had been playing 'sure this is a misunderstanding' to the hilt, and had ordered in for all of them, while they waited for the results on the toll bridge crossing. And Natale hadn't looked concerned at any point. He knew he had a record of going across the bridge. The question was whether they could figure out when he came back.  
  
"I have Natale's car going from Camden to Philly at nine last night, and coming back at two in the morning," Garcia started out.  
  
"So, he probably went to a bar, and if he's not guilty of murder, he's probably still guilty of drunk driving." Prentiss sighed.  
  
"Oh, but wait! I didn't stop there!"  
  
Prentiss could hear the keyboard clatter, and then her phone vibrated in her hand.  
  
"I had the photos up anyway, because I was trying to find the car coming back, but something didn't look right in the picture of the back of the car, so I pulled the photos from the toll booth." There was a loaded pause. "That's not Natale _driving_ the car."  
  
"What?" Prentiss blinked.  
  
"Just what I said. That's not Natale. Not according to the DMV. I'm running the photo now, but that's _probably_ a woman." The typing stopped. "There's no effort to hide her face, either. The visor's not down, she's not wearing glasses, no scarf -- nothing! Just a middle-aged woman using Natale's EZ Pass to cross the bridge, in his car."  
  
"Call me back when you have a name. I'll see if we can get the car." Prentiss hung up and dialled again, holding up a finger in response to Lewis's curious gaze. "Alvez? Get me another hour or two. We just ran into something."  
  
On screen, Alvez looked pained, shook his head. "Really? Yeah, okay, I'll let them know."  
  
"Thanks." One more call. Prentiss hung up and dialled again. "Lieutenant, I hate to put you on the spot, but we need a vehicle towed and checked for evidence."  
  
"You've got a suspect?" Sanderson sounded completely relieved. "Give me the info, and I'll have it picked up right away. Do you know where the car is?"  
  
"Well... there's a chance it may be in the parking lot."  
  
Sanderson groaned loudly, and Prentiss could hear the tension in his voice. "Tell me it's not Angelo's."  
  
"Sorry, Lieutenant."

* * *

"It's the same killer," Reid said, talking to Lewis, since he couldn't get through to Prentiss. "There's no doubt in my mind. And this one's even cleaner than the others. There's no rage in this one, no flinging organs. And the shift in location is, regardless of the ultimate reason, a well-considered choice. We're going to start having serious problems, if the rest of the interviews don't turn up anything. But, I think if we check the cameras on 70, we may be able to pick up a vehicle we're looking for."  
  
"It's not going to be Natale's," Lewis told him. "He wasn't driving his car, last night, but someone else took it to Philadelphia."  
  
"To--?" Reid squinted in confusion, before the parts fell into place in his head. "You think he got rid of the car so we'd clear him, while he drove something else."  
  
"That's the prevailing theory. We'll see what we find." Muffled conversation with someone else followed, and then, "Will you be back soon?"  
  
"We're going to stop for lunch, because JJ should eat, but we'll be--"  
  
"Because _you_ need to eat, Spence. You skipped breakfast, and it's--"  
  
" _You_ didn't eat, either, and you usually _do_. I don't. It matters a lot less for me. And I will have this argument after I'm off the phone with Lewis." Reid cleared his throat. "Sorry about that. We're stopping for lunch, because _we_ didn't get breakfast, and it's now afternoon, and certain people unaccustomed to going eighteen to twenty hours without eating shouldn't be working a case in this condition."  
  
"Certain people unaccustomed to going six hours without a cup of coffee shouldn't be either," JJ drawled, as she spotted a drive-thru.  
  
"On that we agree. We'll be back shortly."

* * *

"We have some problems," Prentiss admitted, as the door swung shut behind Reid and JJ. "Lewis and Simmons are out trying to interview some of the other names on the short list, but I have a real bad feeling about Natale. Natale who is getting increasingly and reasonably upset about being here."  
  
"We can't arrest him yet?" JJ asked, handing back Reid's coffee.  
  
Prentiss rolled her eyes and shook her head. "We're still waiting to see if we can get a clear enough shot of any of the traffic on 70, last night, to spot him in it. But, you know how that is."  
  
"I'm guessing we don't know what he's driving and the windshields are probably too reflective to get a clear image of any drivers from regular traffic cameras." Reid pulled a burger out of his coat pocket and attempted to unwrap it without putting down his coffee. "So, we're also looking closer to his apartment, to see if we can tell what car he got into, right?"  
  
Prentiss nodded. "Garcia's going to demand a bonus in chocolate-covered espresso beans, after this one, and she's going to deserve every bean." She shot a look at Reid. "I thought you weren't hungry."  
  
"I wasn't, and then the car smelled like JJ's fries." Reid cleared his throat, not mentioning that he'd promised Langly he'd actually remember to eat more than once a day. Which, really, was a lot coming from Langly, though he was getting better about it. "So, we have six suspects, one of them actually likely given actions taken, last night. And we can't yet prove anything except that he was lying about being in Philadelphia."  
  
JJ's phone rang, and she stepped away from the other two to answer it.  
  
"We haven't hit him with that, yet, but we're going to have to. I was trying to get his car back, first, but we're running out of time. The lawyer's getting antsy. He knows something's up." Prentiss eyed the screen again.  
  
"So, do it. We'll have a very good reason to hold him until we find more evidence." Reid shrugged and took a bite of the frankly terrible burger. He chewed for a moment, and then turned his back to deposit that bite in the rubbish bin along with the rest of the burger. After rinsing his mouth with coffee, he went on. "I know you were trying to keep this friendly, to keep him off-guard, but we're past that point."  
  
Prentiss shook her head, eyes still on the screen. "Yes, but I'm waiting for one of two things to happen."  
  
On screen, the lawyer stood up, with an annoyed word to Rossi.  
  
"That." Prentiss hit the call button on her phone, and on screen, Alvez answered his. "Time to tell them what's going on. We still don't have the woman's name, but she's not him."  
  
"Oh, really?" Alvez asked, with a bit too much relish, looking up at where Natale now stood next to his lawyer. "You're going to want to sit back down and explain to me why a woman was driving your car, with your EZ Pass, across the bridge, instead of you."  
  
Natale looked surprised for a split second and then a cold fury broke across his face. "I don't know what you're talking about."  
  
"Sending you the images now," Prentiss said, and hung up, texting the tollbooth photos to Alvez, as she leaned over to turn up the volume.  
  
"I've had enough of this shit. We're leaving." Natale gestured at the door, encouraging his lawyer to use it, but the lawyer didn't move.  
  
"We're pressing charges for obstruction," Rossi decided. "We may not be able to prove you've been obstructing the investigation since you initially headed it, but Agent Alvez is holding proof you've lied during the course of this interview, in a way that directly affects the course of our investigation, and may have cost us critical hours."  
  
"Yes!" Prentiss hissed, shooting an uncertain smile at Reid. "Now, all we have to do is get enough proof to charge him with murder."  
  
"Assuming he's guilty of murder." Reid sipped his coffee. "Which, right now... He really hasn't helped himself at all. If he's not guilty, he's--"  
  
"An idiot," JJ cut in. "Even if he is guilty, he's an idiot. How did he think he was going to get someone else past the tollbooth cameras?"  
  
"With a baseball cap and a pair of glasses." Reid shrugged. "We wouldn't have been able to tell, if the driver had made _any_ attempt to obscure their face and hair, but they're looking directly at the camera."  
  
"Nerves," Prentiss suggested, and then glanced back at JJ. "Who was on the phone?"  
  
"The lab just got back to us. We're looking at a popular anti-insomnia drug that most likely _wasn't_ administered in a drink at the restaurant. It's for people who can't fall asleep, but can stay asleep, so it hits in under twenty minutes and wears off in an hour and a half. The lab says the victims were probably disoriented and hallucinating, if they were awake at all during the transport and preparation. It's likely they were awake enough to understand what was happening, by the time they were killed. Sudden trauma tends to have that effect."  
  
Reid made a small sound of amusement. "You've noticed."  
  
"Call Sanderson. Tell him the name of the drug, and have him see if any of it's been seized during arrests, and then see if it's still where it's supposed to be." Prentiss watched Alvez and Rossi lead Natale out of the interview room. "God, I hope we're right about this."  
  
"We've only found one car, right?" Reid asked eyes unfocused somewhere near the edge of the screen. "Proposed: We don't have the cars because the killer is using the victims' cars to transport them, and then... leaving them somewhere we're not going to find them. Junkyards. Tow lots. Places cars end up _after_ they've been taken off the street. Or, if we're really unlucky, they were scrapped for parts before dawn."  
  
"We've been looking for the cars because we assumed the victims were taken _out_ of them -- that the cars were left on the street or in parking lots. We've been assuming the tow companies would have picked them up legitimately, so they've only been checking their _records_ , not the lots..." Prentiss raised her phone again, just in time for it to ring. "Yeah. What've you got, Garcia?"  
  
"I have found the driver of Natale's car. One Clarita Valenzi, currently living in Philly," Garcia reported triumphantly. "And? She's his cousin."  
  
"Good work. Send it all to Rossi. I need you to-- You're still looking for a car we know on 70?" Prentiss asked, realising how many threads they were following at once.  
  
"I can tell you that whoever's driving it, Natale's car is not there. But we know that, because we know where it was. And I'm trying to clean up a few other frames to see if vehicle type matches are also license plate matches, for any of the others."  
  
"Good. Finish that, just in case, but I've got another car for you." Prentiss grimaced apologetically, even though Garcia couldn't see her. "This morning's victim was a Claire Hanrahan, age sixty-eight, living in Cherry Hill. See if you can find _her_ car anywhere near the fur shop. And--"  
  
"Credit cards, find out where she was coming from, to narrow the field." The sound of typing started in the background. "I will... call you back when I get _any_ of this."


	20. Chapter 20

"So, how did you end up driving Angelo's car last night?" JJ asked, watching the woman balance a toddler on one hip and fold laundry one-handed.  
  
"Oh, it was nothing. I was telling him last week that I never get to go out, with the kids and all, and Ricky always takes the car to work at night, so even if I can get a sitter, I can't go anywhere. And Angie says to me, why don't I take his car, instead, and I just have to drop him off where he's going, and he'll pick up the car in the morning." Clarita smiled and bounced the child, absently. "Angie's so good to his family, you know? You hear all these scary things about people who came back from the war all screwed up, and we all thought it was going to be bad, the way he got hurt, but he saw an ad in the paper and he joined the police, and he's better. He's changed. He was good before he went away, but I'll tell you what, he's even better now that he's all grown up. He says he couldn't have got this far without helping people, you know? How special is that?"  
  
JJ smiled back, warmed by how much this woman thought of her cousin, but chilled by the thought that cousin could still be a killer. "You sure you don't want me to help you fold? I know how hard it is to get anything done, when they're that age."  
  
"Oh, no, it's fine. I do this all the time." Clarita waved off the help. "Don't we do this all the time, Gordo?"  
  
The child grinned and waved a toy.  
  
"He's so big," Clarita stage-whispered to JJ, one mother to another, and JJ nodded sympathetically.  
  
"So, Angelo came to get you, and ... where did you drive him?" Reid asked, trying not to touch anything in the room that he didn't absolutely have to, as Gordo waved the drool-covered toy at him again. He wasn't like this with his godchildren, but random toddlers still grossed him out. This place had all the questionably clean surfaces of anyone else's house, but with extra bodily fluids, and he was trying so hard to focus on the smell of clean laundry, instead of the smell of a dishwasher that badly needed to be bleached.  
  
"Oh, to one of those car yards for the police. He said he had to go look up a car somebody lost in the system, and somebody from work would be by to pick him up in a few hours." Clarita took a long look at Reid. "Why are you guys asking so much about Angelo? Is this so he can get back to work?"  
  
"Something like that. We just need to check on where he's been, while he hasn't been working. Make sure he's been doing what he's supposed to, all that boring stuff." JJ smiled again, shaking her head dismissively. "Did he ask you to do anything, while you had his car? Or maybe _not_ to do anything?"  
  
"Oh, you know what, he did, and I forgot to do it... I hope he's not in trouble." Clarita stopped folding and lifted her hand to cover a grimace. "He told me to wear his cowboy hat when I crossed the bridge."  
  
Reid managed not to look at JJ, as he slung together the best excuse he could. "He may have been concerned about your safety, given that he's in law enforcement and you were driving his car. He may have been concerned someone might recognise you and connect you with him. Which, to be fair, we did, so it's absolutely a legitimate concern."  
  
Clarita shifted to hold Gordo with both hands. "He didn't tell you I borrowed the car?"  
  
"No, ma'am." JJ paused, watching the surprise start to turn to panic. "He told us _he_ was driving the car."  
  
"Oh, my god, what is he _doing_?" Clarita shook her head and rolled her panic-wide eyes. "Is he off his pills again?"  
  
She froze, as if she'd said something she shouldn't have, staring at the two agents. On her hip, Gordo kicked and started to cry, and she set him down, her eyes never leaving JJ's face. "Go find your army man, Gordo. Go find your army man and bring him to mama."  
  
The child toddled off toward the kitchen door, slapping one drool-soaked hand on Reid's knee, as he passed.  
  
"What pills, Mrs Valenzi?" JJ asked, while Reid sat very still and said nothing at all.  
  
"He's not on them, now. I don't know what I was thinking, but when he first got back, he was taking some pills because he couldn't sleep, and when he forgot them, he'd say all kinds of weird things." Clarita shrugged. "But, he doesn't need them any more. He hasn't taken them in years. I remember he called me the first time he slept a whole night without one -- he used to take them when he woke up, so he could go back to sleep, and he was so happy he didn't need one that night. He called me up to take me and my parents out to breakfast, because he felt so good. It took a long while, but he stopped taking them."  
  
JJ looked up at her. "Do you remember what those pills were called?"

* * *

"Garcia found Hanrahan's car in the lot Natale asked his cousin to drop him off at. If I were to guess, he used Cassidy's car to follow her, but we still don't know where Cassidy's ended up," Prentiss said, as Reid stepped out of the bathroom, wearing pyjamas and a bathrobe.  
  
"Somewhere in Cherry Hill, probably. And if he left it on the street somewhere, he probably also changed the license plate before he left the impound lot." Reid looked like he was about ready to climb out of his skin as he sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to hide that he was leaning against the wall.  
  
"Did you end up eating, today?" Prentiss asked.  
  
"I'm fine," Reid insisted.  
  
"He had a burger, remember?" JJ looked up from her tablet, where she was sorting through what Garcia had sent.  
  
"No, he didn't."  
  
Reid picked up the thread. "He thought he was going to have a burger, but that was not actually edible, so he threw it out and had a granola bar, instead. I'm fine. I ate. Can we please get back to the case?"  
  
"No fingerprints in the obvious places," Prentiss went on, shooting Reid a disapproving look that he ignored. "But, we did find an empty, small bottle of water."  
  
"Sleeping pills." Reid managed to look a little less like he was going to pass out and slide off the edge of the bed. "Did we find the--"  
  
"Not yet." Prentiss shook her head. "The apartment's not that big, but he's probably not keeping them at home, if they're his. We did confirm the prescription, though. He stopped refilling it in twenty-fifteen."  
  
"Would the pills still be good after that long?" JJ looked up again, obviously unconvinced.  
  
Reid eyed her like he hoped she wasn't serious. "Ah, yeah. Actually, they would be. Maybe a little less effective, or they might've started to taste bad. The coating or capsule may have degraded a little. But, the vast majority of medications, if kept within their storage parameters, are usable for _years_ after the expiration."  
  
"Why do you know this?" JJ squinted at him.  
  
"Perhaps more to the point, why do you not?"  
  
"So, the pills from twenty-fifteen are probably the pills he's using, if we can prove they were in that bottle." Prentiss redirected the conversation back to the point at hand. "But, we can't connect the drug to Natale, _now_. And I'm not sure why an elderly woman would drink a bottle of water given to her by a random guy. Threats?"  
  
Reid shook his head against the wall, leaving a wet streak. "I very badly need another cup of coffee, so bear with me, but I propose that it looks like kindness. He pulls her over for erratic driving. As a detective, he's used to driving unmarked cars, and he probably has a light kit, for when he needs one. They're even smaller, now, than they used to be. He says he has to run her license, maybe hints at a few things that make her nervous, and then offers her water, while they wait. She drinks the water, and within minutes, she's no longer in a condition to drive, so as a police officer, he offers to drive her home. Remember, the man has a stack of commendations from the community the size of an entire file drawer. He's publicly recognised as the good cop, and he reinforces that stereotype in public. He's friendly, he's appropriately concerned, and his victims really have no reason not to trust him. By the time they realise something's wrong, they're well on their way to incapacitated."  
  
"And that's how he gets into their cars." JJ pointed at Reid. "But, I don't think all of them would fall for it. What about the lawyer?"  
  
Reid shrugged. "Carjacking? Threats might still work, if the soft approach failed. But, we've been working under the assumption that he's been coming in friendly, because there aren't any marks on the body from before they're suspended."  
  
"We can't find the cars, for the most part, so we don't know how he stopped them, but Reid's right, pulling them over for erratic driving is a solid approach. So is letting the air out of a tire, and waiting for them to notice." Prentiss tipped her chair back, crossing an ankle over the other knee.  
  
JJ nodded. "'Have some water and stand back, I'll change that tire for you.' I could see it. But, we're still dealing with two cars. Wherever he's stopping them can't be far from where he's dumping one of the cars, because he still has to come back for the one he's not using, after he dumps the other one. That or someone's picking him up after he dumps the car, and taking him back to the other one."  
  
"He said someone from the station was picking him up at the impound yard," Reid remembered. "It could be true. And it might not be the same person every time. Or he might be calling a cab."  
  
"Cabs get a lot of business to and from impound yards, but not usually at that hour." Prentiss rocked back and rhythmically tapped the back of her chair against the wall as she thought. "Which would make him stand out, if he was doing that. If he was calling friends, we'd have picked it up in the phone records. If he was calling cabs, we'd have picked it up."  
  
"Payphone," Reid offered, still leaning dizzily on the wall. "I can have a map of payphones in Camden in my hands in the next fifteen minutes or less."  
  
JJ finally got up and went to get Reid a cup of coffee from the pot at the other end of the room. Half a cup, really, because the other half was sugar. She crouched down and pressed it into his hand. "Drink this and then tell us about the payphones."  
  
"Thanks." Reid smiled weakly, not opening his eyes, as he brought the coffee up and then made a completely disgusted sound at the taste. "Why is there--"  
  
"So you don't die, Spence." JJ looked over her shoulder and rolled her eyes at Prentiss.  
  
"I'm just a little tired. It's been an extremely long month." Reid squinted at JJ. "Hand me my bag. My phone is in it. I'll get the payphones sent."  
  
"So are your granola bars," JJ reminded him, getting up to pull his bag from under the bed.  
  
"I'm not hungry. I'm just tired. I'll be fine," Reid insisted, absently drinking more of the painfully sweet coffee. If nothing else, it might actually keep him awake.  
  
"'I'll be fine', he says. Slightly more honest than the usual 'I _am_ fine'," Prentiss teased, and Reid was not too tired to level an offended glare at her, as he dug out his phone.  
  
"We have to pull this case together _tomorrow_ ," Reid pointed out, pushing one phone aside and grabbing the one under it.  
  
"No we don't." JJ blinked in surprise. "I mean, it would be nice if we did, but we've got him on federal obstruction charges. We have a few days, at least."  
  
"We've been here for five days. We've made an arrest. We can _almost_ link Natale to everything." Reid held the phone to his ear and sighed. "Frank? Hey, when you get a minute can you pull payphones in Camden for me? Thanks. I'll, ah... I'll call you again later, but call me when you've got it." A pause. "Answering machine. We're going to wrap this case up tomorrow. I have to believe that. I have to make sure that happens."  
  
"You have to finish that coffee and go to bed." JJ raised her eyebrows at Prentiss. "Your room?"  
  
"Sleep, Reid." Prentiss got up. "And eat something. Man cannot live on _one granola bar_. I'm pretty sure even Villette eats more than you do."


	21. Chapter 21

And in the end, Reid hadn't slept. Not really. Maybe it was that last cup of coffee, but he doubted it. He slept just the same with or without the coffee, most days. The sugar, most likely. Either way, he was back out of bed barely an hour after he'd laid down. And, of course, JJ had been right. He was ravenous. What _was_ the last thing he'd eaten? Lunch, he thought. Yesterday's lunch. Because he'd been too distracted to lay claim to any of dinner, before they went out to interview Washington, and by the time they got back, the leftovers didn't strike him as being food. And then he'd skipped breakfast, mostly because it was breakfast, decided lunch wasn't food, and nobody had taken dinner because Natale's alibi had finally disintegrated.  
  
That was, he knew, probably a reason to be tired. And eating at this point was definitely going to make him sleep, which probably made it an even better idea, for certain values of 'good idea'. He wondered if he could order a pizza at this hour. It was late, but it wasn't _that late_. He could get a pizza in DC at this hour, but as Langly had once pointed out, you could get almost anything at any hour, in DC, if you were willing to pay exorbitantly for the privilege.  
  
He found a phone book, reasoning that being in a cheap motel increased the odds that there would be pizza available. Somehow, there was almost always late night pizza near _cheap_ motels. And it wasn't really that late. JJ was still rolling the case over with Prentiss, in the other room.  
  
No messages, yet, he noticed, which meant Langly hadn't gotten back to him about the payphones. Or maybe he'd just emailed the list to JJ, and cut out the technologically averse component in the middle. He wondered what Langly was doing, that he hadn't gotten a call back, yet. Probably working on whatever documentation he needed to forge for the Institute. That had become a more and more serious consideration recently. Or he was in bed with Byers, something Reid really couldn't fault either of them for, after the week they'd all just had.  
  
He called for a pizza, figuring he'd eat half of it and go back to bed. JJ could have the rest, when she got back. She hadn't gotten any dinner, either.

* * *

The next time Reid woke up was only a few hours after he'd gone back to sleep. Typical. He checked the time, realising it was almost a reasonable hour, and got back up. JJ was definitely asleep, and the room still smelled of pizza. The box, though, was no longer on the table, and he found himself relieved by that.  
  
A quick shower, and then he got dressed and... considered not leaving the bathroom. It was late enough that he could probably call Chaz. Neither of them slept well. But, did he want to have that conversation standing outside? But, then, he had no idea when JJ would wake, and taking up the bathroom for a phone call would be incredibly rude, particularly since he had no idea how long it would take. Regretfully, he put on his jacket and took the call outside.  
  
"Are you all right?" Chaz didn't bother to open with 'hello'.  
  
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have called. It's much too early, and you're--"  
  
"Awake anyway. Try again." There followed a breath that might've been a laugh. "I'd laugh, but I can't, yet. It still hurts like murder."  
  
"Weren't you on something for that?" Reid asked. "It's why I've been keeping to myself."  
  
"Not for a while. I had to stop before I could really make an attempt to, ah, get to know Kim." Chaz paused, a slow breath audible down the line. "And if I didn't have a more practical reason, I'd probably have done it for you. I know you can't..."  
  
"I would have waited." Reid protested, quietly, pacing to keep himself warm. "I _have been_ waiting. You shouldn't be in pain. Well... _that much_ pain. Nothing works as well as you want it to, and I know that."  
  
"It's not that important. It hurts, but it doesn't hurt like..." Chaz left the sentence unfinished. "Another couple of weeks, and I'll be climbing again. And I need it."  
  
"You need more than another couple of weeks!" And Reid suddenly found himself intensely aware of what a hypocrite he was, but he'd been doing that a lot, lately. It wasn't like he wouldn't have gone straight back to work, if he healed as quickly as Chaz did.  
  
And Chaz called him on it, mercilessly. "So, you remember when you got shot in the back, a few months ago? I'm bored, and I hate hospitals."  
  
"Frank told me you were coming home, yesterday, and I was supposed to let you sleep. So, I know you're not still in the hospital."  
  
"Sleep." A small, agonised laugh. "I wasn't really doing a lot of that. But, he probably didn't know what was going to happen, when he talked to you, last."  
  
"Is--"  
  
"He's fine. We're all okay," Chaz assured Reid. Even without the connection between them, he could read the panic in that single syllable. "I had to make a decision, and I'll tell you all about it, when you get home. But, we were discussing the Fitzgerald Institute, when our favourite Italian doctor showed up and brought his front door with him."  
  
" _Merlo_?" Reid was stunned. "How? _Why_?"  
  
"Mary told him about the Institute, and he wants to help. For the people, by the people. And that really means him and _me_. But, as frightening as the idea is, he's right. Idlewood was designed to help, in its own way, but mostly to contain, because no one was sure we could be helped and everyone was sure we could walk right out of prison, or worse. Idlewood is an inpatient facility for people who can't or won't help themselves. And believe me, I see the appeal, some days, of just giving in. But, the Institute is for those of us who can make it on the outside, if we have a little support, which is nightmarish to get. And what we need is anomalous people on staff. People like me, like Hafs, like Merlo, who have survived and not become the kind of cruel we might have. We're proof it's possible, and we're a lot less likely to treat people like potentially dangerous curiosities, which is something I'm extremely familiar with." Chaz finally stopped talking on the breath that would've started another sentence. "Okay, apparently this is the time when I have opinions. Sorry. We can talk about it, when you get back. I know you're in the middle of a case."  
  
"I'm almost at the end of a case. It's a pretty bad one." Reid sighed and sank down, crouching against the wall next to the door of the motel room, staring out across the parking lot and the lights of the city. "We think it's one of the locals."  
  
Chaz whistled on an inhale.  
  
"Not just one of the locals, but the lead detective on the case, before we caught it."  
  
"That's not going to end well, and we both know it." Chaz took an audible breath and Reid could hear another sound behind it, probably his neck popping. "Don't get shot. One of us out of commission at a time is more than enough."  
  
Reid breathed a small laugh that turned into condensation when it touched his lips. "We've already arrested him for obstruction, and that's going to stick. Of course, if there's another murder while he's in custody, then we have a real problem. But, it's extremely unlikely that I'm going to get shot -- none of the victims have been. If anything goes wrong, I'm more likely to get stabbed. Again. For what it's worth, I'd prefer not to get stabbed again."  
  
"I'd be pretty upset if you got stabbed again."  
  
"Well, I definitely wouldn't want to upset you, in the condition you're in," Reid teased, the jest plain in his voice. "But, I would still like being stabbed even less."  
  
"Your boyfriend will be thrilled to hear at least one of us is exhibiting a sense of self-preservation, today. And my condition really isn't that bad, all things considered. Broken ribs hurt, and I really shouldn't be back in the field for a couple of weeks, but as long as I don't do anything too stupid, it's really only going to be a couple of weeks. And then a few months down the line, I'll have to take another week off when the screws start growing back out. It's one of the small handful of benefits of being me -- well, of being anomalous, really."  
  
"Is Hafidha taking good care of you?" Reid really wasn't sure what he expected.  
  
"Absolutely not. She's out with Mary." Chaz managed a sound that might've been a laugh, if he was trying not to move his chest too much. "But, your boyfriend managed to arrange several catering trays of curry at a completely unreasonable hour, last night, so I'm pretty much just eating and sleeping. More eating than sleeping."  
  
"And here I am doing neither."  
  
"You can't do neither. Pick one, Spencer."  
  
"Incidentally, I had noticed that. Yesterday was just extremely complicated and involved a certain amount of inedible food. But, I managed to sleep _before_ that happened!" Reid protested. "But, again, I'm not the one with broken ribs. How's your shoulder, by the way?"  
  
"Better than the ribs. It's not really my shoulder, this time. Not... like last time. It's my collarbone, which my body has decided is much more important than my ribs, so that's... not great, but it will be. Again, I could rotate my arm without passing out more than a week ago. It's not that bad. I promise." Chaz turned the conversation back on Reid. "And what did I hear about you getting your ass grabbed by one of the locals?"  
  
"I did not. And that was actually our current suspect." Reid sighed, wondering how so much had happened in so few days. "Blatant intimidation attempt, but just close enough that I could call it sexual harassment. Loudly. In front of half the station. Which probably would have achieved the desired effect, if he hadn't been removed from the case fifteen minutes later, for other reasons."  
  
"You did _what_?" Chaz snorted, desperately trying not to laugh.   
  
"Yes. Exactly. No one saw that coming." Reid allowed himself a small smile. "Surprise is an excellent tool, in so many situations."  
  
"Speaking of surprise, I can still tell you exist."  
  
"We're on the phone. I hope you can tell I exist."  
  
"That's not what I mean, and you know it."  
  
"I do know. And you've just demonstrated I'm not anomalous, because where you usually are has been empty, for me. There's just ... space. Which is a completely irrational conceit, because there's no such thing as a space to be emptied, but there's some unfulfilled expectation, and my mind keeps stumbling over it," Reid admitted, cautiously.  
  
"First of all, good. I need to be sure that still works. I need to know that if something happens, I can still separate myself from you, like we did in Helmsman's house. That _one of us_ will be in a position to keep going." Chaz paused, taking another slow and audible breath. "Second, if I didn't think I'd distract you from the investigation, I'd let you back in. But, as we both know, several broken ribs, and I'm not sure I can keep as much of a lid on that as you deserve, which is exactly why it's important that I can still do this. But, looking the other way? I know you're there. I can't see anything else without ... letting the light in, but I absolutely know you're still alive. That there's still a mind there to be seen."  
  
"I'm somewhat disturbed by this. You're trying not to be aware of me, but I'm still there. On the other hand, this is almost comforting in some ways. And I'm realising how much I miss having that with you. The intrinsic awareness of another person, of a person I care enough to be concerned about. Even if we're not sharing the moment, yeah, you're ... there. And now you're not." Reid cleared his throat. "And you weren't there for the first thirty-seven years of my life, so this isn't actually unusual, but I've gotten used to you."  
  
"We'll talk about it when you get home. You have a case to solve. I have a curry to eat." Chaz paused. "Unless you want me to help you solve that case. It's ... not like I'm doing anything else."  
  
"You're eating and sleeping. We're almost done, here." Reid chewed on his bottom lip. "Chaz?"  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"Stay warm."

* * *


	22. Chapter 22

The phone didn't ring, until they were at the station. No bodies had been discovered, that morning, which didn't say much, because the killings hadn't been so closely spaced. But, there was the unspoken hope that with Natale in custody, they'd stop.  
  
"Office of Unsurpassed Excellence delivering your excellence. Tell me you love me, and put me on speaker," Garcia demanded.  
  
"You're already on speaker," Prentiss told her.  
  
"And of course we love you. What have you got?" JJ leaned in closer in expectation.  
  
"I have... probably one of the cars you're looking for. Probably. It's the same make, model, and year as the car Harmon Williams was abducted from, and it shows up a few blocks from the restaurant where Philip Cassidy was last seen, on the night of his murder. But! It's not Williams's license plate." Garcia paused for a long moment. "It's not a license plate that belongs on that car, though. It's the license plate from a ninety-seven Toyota Camry that's listed as having been totalled and then destroyed. Whoever's driving doesn't care if the plate gets picked up, because they're not driving badly in the car, so there's no reason to look closer -- the plates don't match the missing car, so it can't be the missing car, to most people. To me, too. And then I realised I was seeing the car you were looking for in the right place at the right time, but with the wrong plates, in at least two cases, so I went back to the more recent one and checked again. And there's a few cars that match the description, around that time, but only one's got the wrong plates. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you suspicious car number one. Sent to your phones, please follow along at home."  
  
JJ opened the image and studied it, before she passed her phone to Prentiss.  
  
"Now, Camden doesn't have a lot of traffic cameras, so I've had to pull surveillance video from the surrounding areas, which is even worse quality than the traffic cameras. And we don't see the abduction, but we do see where that car ended up, and this is why I only have one of them done, and it is at a junkyard not far from the docks. _Their_ cameras picked it up, coming in."  
  
"Who's driving?" Reid asked, finally joining the conversation.  
  
"There's no way to tell. The lights on the fence reflect off the windshield. And it's black and white, so it was just a little bit of work to figure out this was the car I was looking for. And I guess the junkyard doesn't check their cameras unless they suspect a break in, which they wouldn't, because I doubt the driver cut the fence."  
  
"He must get out of the car, though, right?" Prentiss closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. "If the gates are locked, the driver has to unlock and open them, in order to get the car in."  
  
"The driver does get out of the car, but again, black and white with floodlights, and the camera's on the other side of the car and further back. There's no data to enhance in that image. It's a blurry figure in a dark-coloured coat and hat, probably five-eight to five ten, to judge by the top of the car."  
  
Reid tipped his head. "I am several inches taller than Natale. In fact, he's the shortest on our list, right now."

* * *

"Mr Liberti, we're here to ask you a few questions about your next door neighbour, Angelo Natale." Rossi folded his badge and put it back into his pocket.  
  
"I knew he was no good!" the little old man roared, shaking his finger at Rossi. "I knew that spic was gonna be trouble!"  
  
Alvez blinked slowly, entirely unimpressed.  
  
"Is it drugs? Is that what he's into? I bet you got him for dealing. Like I said to my Rosalina, those boys are all drug dealers--"  
  
"Your neighbour? On this side?" Rossi pointed down the hall toward Natale's door. "The police detective?"  
  
"He _says_ he's with the police!" the old man scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. "I bet he spends plenty of time with them!"  
  
Alvez found himself wondering if he'd become a murderer if he lived next door to this guy, but he said nothing, recognising that letting Rossi handle it was the only way they were going to get any information. If they _could_ get any information. Anthony Liberti wasn't looking like a sympathetic witness, at this point.  
  
Rossi didn't waste time trying to convince Liberti that Natale was actually a detective. "Well, what can you tell me about him, as a neighbour? Did he have any friends you saw a lot? Could you hear him through the wall?"  
  
"He plays loud music when he doesn't want anyone to know what he's doing! And he flushes the toilet while my Rosalina's sleeping! I bang on the wall, to make him stop, like you hit a dog on the nose with a newspaper, but he's not real smart. He can't take a hint."  
  
"So, you'd know when he's home, right? Loud guy like that..." Rossi raised his eyebrows and shrugged, as if it were a foregone conclusion.  
  
"Oh, he's home _every night_. Every night I gotta listen to the worst of rock and roll." Liberti huffed and folded his arms.  
  
"What about the last three nights?" Rossi asked, knowing Natale hadn't been home the night before, because he'd been _in jail_.  
  
"Last night was quiet," Liberti admitted. "Maybe he went out someplace. I don't know. But, the night before that, he was up all night playing his damn music. And the day before that, he was home all day, with the toilet and the phone and the music. I went to the store the day before that, but when I got home, his damn music was on."  
  
"So, you'd say he was probably home, the night before last. Can you tell me around when he turned _off_ the music?"  
  
"I dunno." The old man shook his head and gestured dismissively with both hands. "It was off when I woke up in the morning. I fell asleep sitting in my chair, waiting for him to come home, so I could go over there and give him a fat lip."

* * *

"More news, my fearless crime fighters! I have found the last place Claire Hanrahan used her credit card and ... it's a restaurant. Surprise rating now zero. But, it's a very expensive restaurant that actually serves expensive food! Credit for honesty in pricing! And it's in Cherry Hill, same as the scene and the victim's home. So, it's not just Camden, any more, but at the same time, it might as well be." Garcia's fingers clattered across the keyboard. "And you have the location."  
  
"Do we also have a list of the employees?" Reid asked, adding the new location to the map on the wall. "I'm still trying to figure out how the sedative is being administered, and we don't have any crossover on the restaurant employees, but I keep hoping one of them saw something. Someone _other than_ Hazlett."  
  
"You had a pretty good guess last night," Prentiss reminded him.  
  
"Pulling over the victims for minor traffic infractions, or somehow letting the air out of their tires and stopping to help them." Reid nodded, looking moderately dismayed. "Both of them classic approaches for abduction. I'd hope that by now--" He sighed. "But, if you can't trust the police, who can you trust? It's the perfect disguise, at that income level, particularly. Working-class individuals are generally much more suspicious that an officer isn't there to _help_ them, though that's one of the things Natale is repeatedly commended for addressing. He's tried very hard to restore the faith of the working class in the police. Like the profile says, he's fighting for the safety of an underserved population. Of course, exploiting his role with the police to commit murder undercuts his efforts to some degree."  
  
"Less than you'd think," JJ said, tipping her head back as she considered it. "Because he's not killing the people he's working to protect. He's killing the people he believes are threatening them, threatening _their children_."  
  
Prentiss looked at Reid and pointed at JJ. "Because the way you get into college, if you're poor, is through the Armed Forces. There are grants and scholarships for that, but chances are, you'll end up doing a couple of years overseas, first. And if Levonel might be exempted from the restrictions that currently prevent them from taking government contracts--"  
  
"They're threatening the children of the people he's trying to help." Reid nodded, again. "And he can use his position as as an agent of public safety to make sure it doesn't happen. By killing the responsible parties, he's making the community safer."  
  
"I kind of feel bad for this guy, but I'd feel a lot worse for him if he wasn't an ass-grabbing murderer," Garcia decided, after a moment. "He doesn't think anyone's going to take him seriously enough to fight this in the right channels."  
  
"They won't." JJ shrugged. "Look what happened with Alan Washington."  
  
"Okay, but we still can't put anyone at the scene of the crime. Or even in the car." Prentiss looked at the others, hoping someone would tell her she'd missed something. "We still can't prove this was Natale, _or anyone else_."  
  
Garcia made an uncertain sound. "Now that I know what I'm looking for, I might be able to find it. But, again, there really aren't a lot of traffic cameras in Camden, which makes this a little more difficult. You can hold him for obstruction, right? Because I need _time_. I also need Gates. Two of us can do this three times as fast."  
  
"Call Frank," Reid suggested. "He's unusually skilled at predicting camera placement. Agent Gates can probably process the data faster than both of you, but Frank can figure out where to _look for_ the data."  
  
"It's because he's usually trying not to get caught by those cameras, isn't it?" Garcia made a sharp sound. "No! Don't tell me! Lalala, your boyfriend is a law-abiding network specialist. I'll call back when I have something."

* * *

"Ex _cuse_ me? You want me to _what_?" Langly leaned over and pulled open the microwave before it could beep.  
  
"I need you to take a look at some parts of Camden in Google Street View, and tell me where you think the cameras are, because our dear Spencer thinks you'll find them faster than I will." The slurp of a straw at the bottom of a very large cup followed. "And he's probably right. You and Hafs are going to have to help me, because this is a ridiculously wide search, and there's no way I can do it fast enough. There's six victims, which means six restaurants and six homes the victims were headed for when they were taken, but also six murder scenes and thirteen cars we're looking for, and the city of Camden is dirt poor and doesn't do traffic cameras, so I have to figure out whether any private security cameras or ATM cameras catch enough of the streets along any of the routes to find the victims and then to find whatever the killer was driving. And we hope that in any of these cases, the killer's face isn't blocked by the reflection off the windows."  
  
"Oh, my _god_." Langly paused, coffee halfway to his mouth. "Yeah, send me the routes. I'll find what I can. Give Rabbit the list of cars. We'll work faster together."  
  
"And when you find cars that match the description, don't worry about the license plates matching. I'll check that, because we're probably looking for one that doesn't match on the plate. I just need to know the car, the time, the plate number, the location, and the owner of the camera that caught it, and I'll handle all the paperwork to make it all official. Thank you, R-- _Frank_. I'll buy you lunch."  
  
"I'm actually at Villette's, but if you really want to send us some pizza, I don't think we'll turn it down."


	23. Chapter 23

"What are you working on?" Chaz asked, crossing the front of the living room with a small stack of plates in one hand. The other hand, he kept folded across himself, holding on the the belt of his bathrobe.  
  
"Her Majesty needs another couple sets of hands on that case in New Jersey. I'm just flagging data for Hafs." Langly's eyes rolled back down and he blinked and looked over at Chaz. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"  
  
"There is only so long a man can be horizontal in the course of a day. I'm bored, and I can't use my laptop without the tray and like... the _couch_. Otherwise I end up bending my back and screwing up my ribs." Chaz shrugged the undamaged shoulder. "Thought I'd come down and check on the bread situation, see what the leftovers look like from yesterday."  
  
"Sorry, no leftovers, but the pizza should be here, soon." Langly absently gestured at the empty pan sitting on the coffee table. "I'll make a casserole, in a while. You shouldn't be trying to use that arm at counter height, yet."  
  
"Bullshit," Chaz snapped and ducked into the kitchen, to put the dishes in the dishwasher. "The arm was the first thing I could use, and it's almost fine."  
  
"Which is why you're still carrying it like your shoulder's broken," Langly drawled. "Nice try, but I know that look."  
  
"That's... actually because more of my ribs are broken on that side, and if I don't lift the arm too high or let it hang, they don't complain as much. It's really almost over. As long as I keep stuffing my face, you won't even be able to tell they were broken in a couple more weeks. Reminds me, do we still have the gelatin?"  
  
"Yeah, it's where it usually goes. You want me to do something with that?" Langly's fingers seized something that wasn't there and he pulled like he was winding twine around his fingers. "Ha! Got you! You think you're so smart..."  
  
"I was hoping to talk you into an aspic." Chaz leaned around the wall of the dining room. "What did you just find?"  
  
"Just a car we're looking for, for now, but I don't think he can get off this street before he has to pass the bank, and the bank has better cameras than anything else on the route. I hope they're using something to cut the glare, because we can't see the damn driver in any of these, and all we need is the driver." Langly tipped his head back, to look at Chaz over the back of the couch. "'All we need is the driver', as in we identify the driver and Reid's home in two days, max."  
  
"What can I do?" Chaz asked, smiling hopefully. He was bored. He was _so bored_.  
  
"You can get yourself a bowl of ice cream before you try to do anything else." The raised eyebrow was almost as effective, upside down.  
  
"Okay, yes, but _besides_ eating. I have to do something. I'm losing my mind. I absolutely understand why Spencer went back to work so fast in November, and this is not the first time either of us have been in this situation, but it's _still boring_. It's twice as boring because I can only sit in like three positions and they all make my ass hurt."  
  
"Didn't you pass out in a plastic chair, last week?"  
  
"That doesn't make it a good idea or something I want to repeat. Necessity is the mother of invention and of stupid stunts I wouldn't have pulled if anyone else could've done it for me."  
  
"Yeah, that's fair." Langly nodded. "Get yourself something and grab your laptop. I need some probabilities on route choices and dump sites."  
  
Chaz blinked. "Oh. Yeah, of course. Send me what you've got and I'll work out from there. I mean, I'm late to the party and the three of you are probably going to be done before I--"  
  
"We're not, Villette. Trust me. We're not."

* * *

No signal. He should've known. But, Langly had thought of that when he'd designed the phones, and so Reid hit the delay button, so the message would send as soon as there was a connection. It was probably better not to interrupt Langly right now, anyway.  
  
"Just calling to say I love you. I know you won't get this for a few hours, but it seemed important to say it while I had the time. I think we're going to wrap this one up, soon -- and thank you, for that -- and then I'll be home. I'm sorry I had to go so soon after the last case, but I'll be back soon. Have you thought about Easter in Boston? Do you think you'll have _time_? I thought maybe we could stay overnight, this time, and make it a little less... well... I really didn't think that through last time. None of this is the point. I love you; I'll be home soon; and once I get there, I'll demonstrate."  
  
As he hung up, he heard the toilet flush and cursed himself for not checking before he'd made the call. There had never been anyone using this bathroom at the same time he was, and he'd gotten too used to being alone. He lunged for the door, but the stall had already swung open behind him.  
  
"Your wife?" Sanderson asked, going for the sink, to wash his hands. "No need to look like you've been caught with your fingers in the cookie jar. We all call home, when we can."  
  
Reid's mouth opened and closed before anything intelligent made it out. "Something like that," he agreed. "We're not married."  
  
"Dating another agent. I've heard there's some nasty business about that, at the federal level. We try not to allow it here, either." Sanderson looked at him in the mirror. "You know what happens, don't you? You start making bad decisions, trying to protect each other."  
  
"A technical consultant," Reid defended himself, "not a field agent. Not even an agent. It's not a problem I expect us to have, because only one of us is in the field." And that was a lie. It was a problem they'd already had. It was a problem that had caused him to almost blow the Fitzgerald case.  
  
"Oh, it's that gal who always calls up cheerful, the one who called me about the traffic cameras." Sanderson smiled and nodded, as he dried his hands. "She seems nice. Good for you, Agent. Don't let the job keep you from doing the right thing for yourself." He winked as he stepped past Reid and opened the bathroom door. "I married one of the night dispatchers, years ago. I know what I'm talking about. You take good care of that woman, and everything else will fall into place."  
  
"Ah... thank you, Lieutenant." Reid gave Sanderson a head start, before he left the room.

* * *

"What the hell are you talking about? I said _likely_ routes, Villette!" Langly shot Chaz a dirty look.  
  
"And that's why you asked _me_. I told you to pull the maintenance reports on street lamps for a reason. The streets on that route are dimly lit and residential, meaning they have fewer cameras aimed at the street and the light is likely to skew the perceptions of anyone walking down the block. It's late enough there aren't going to be many dog-walkers. Your UnSub would be trying to dodge the cameras, but as we both know, you can't miss all of them." Chaz stretched and then stopped with a choked sound, bringing his arms back down with a few slow breaths. After a moment, he tried again, and this time got through it, one shoulder grinding and snapping, the other one keeping the arm in a tighter circle, not wholly unbent. "What did you tell me about the people who used to be in ... twenty-seven? Somebody in here has their--"  
  
"It's _Camden_. Who the hell can afford motion sensor cameras in Camden?" Langly rolled his eyes.  
  
"The victims," Chaz pointed out, stretching his shoulders back until his chest made a noise it probably shouldn't have, but it felt better almost immediately. "Also, gentrification suggests that some people are going to be keeping a much higher standard of living than the neighbours. Look at the map. You can tell which buildings are more likely to have some kind of security. And we may be in residential, but I think a lot of these are _apartments_ , not houses, whatever they may once have been."  
  
"Which means they're really not going to have--"  
  
"In that neighbourhood, freshly painted? Look again. Somebody's got street facing cameras," Chaz argued, face blanking as he leaned forward to get his coffee, and Langly let him do it after having gotten barked at once for getting it for him.  
  
" _Again_? I haven't even started. I'm still picking through the junkyard cameras. If we can find the cars, there's gotta be something in them. Nobody's good _enough_." Langly twisted his fingers around another invisible video stream, speeding it up and slowing it down at the right parts.  
  
"Except you, right?" Chaz teased.  
  
Langly's eyes swivelled to the side. "You've met me, right? There's a reason Tango-With-Wolves does all the wire work."  
  
"This guy's a cop, if Spencer's right. If there's anything left, it's not going to be easy."  
  
"This guy's sloppy as hell. That was the most half-assed alibi he could possibly have come up with. He could have at _least_ picked a tollbooth that went both ways." Langly rolled his eyes again.  
  
"Okay, I'll give you that. The return tollbooth might have stopped Down the Hall from looking too much closer. But, I'll argue that if his cousin had worn the hat, we also wouldn't be here, now, which isn't _him_ halfassing it." Chaz's laptop was old enough, or maybe he was just heavy-fingered enough, that the keys were clearly audible when he struck them. "You want the whole list of probabilities for the junkyard we know is right?"  
  
"Yeah, gimmie. I'll get there in a sec." Langly waved a hand, dismissively, and grabbed another feed. "Right there. I got your ass _on video_."  
  
Chaz grinned and leaned in to look at Langly's screen, but of course, there wasn't anything useful there.  
  
"No. Really. His ass. That's it. That's all I've got." Langly sat up a little straighter, looking like he'd been personally offended by this failure. "Why the _hell_ is this camera aimed below face height? What is the god damn point of filming everyone's _ass_ who comes in?"  
  
"License plates," Chaz suggested, going back to his own work.  
  
"Okay, we do have that. It's how I know it's our guy." Langly huffed and shook his head. "It's still bullshit. I'm sending you another junkyard with a timestamp."  
  
"I'll narrow down what I'm looking at on that one, see what falls out."  
  
"There's some I can't be sure of, for the early ones. Tape doesn't go back that far." And Langly looked just as offended by that discovery.  
  
"If you don't find anything in the ones that do, I'll bump those to the top of the list for routes." Chaz rolled his broken shoulder again, listening to the difference in the sounds it made. It didn't hurt, but he could feel it, like a subtle, unceasing pressure on the bone. It was like being poked by someone who never took their finger back, and it was amazingly distracting. More distracting, in some ways, than the violent complaints from his ribs about the position of his back, which he fully intended to ignore, because he knew his ribs were screwed together, and the bones weren't going anywhere. Come to think of it, his collarbone was, too.  
  
He stretched the arm up almost over his head and felt the elbow and the shoulder pop again on the way down. There. That was it. That was better.  
  
"Where'd you put the-- Oh. There it is. I'm going to dump some of this on Rabbit, or we're going to be here for the next three days. Faces, you can almost trust a machine to find, or at least to identify that they exist. Cars on low-resolution videos in the dark, you're lucky if I can tell the difference between them, never mind some dumbass neural network. A power pole is not a bicycle, Google."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~I am writing the last chapter of this! I am doing it! MUAHAHAHAHA~~


	24. Chapter 24

Reid was in bed, when the phone went off. Not sleeping, but in bed, and bed was where he wanted to stay, for at least a little longer. But, that wasn't his work phone. That was _Langly_.  
  
He answered it as he rolled out of bed, "Hang on."  
  
Pulling the bathroom door closed behind him, he tried again. "Hey, I missed you."  
  
"We got him."  
  
"Wait, what?" Reid was awake now, if he hadn't been a moment ago, and he stuck his wrist under cold water to bring his brain the rest of the way up.  
  
"Your ass-grabbing cop. There's one image out of all of them where you can see his face, and it's him."  
  
"You've put Natale at the scene." It wasn't quite a question, but it had a hint of disbelief to it.  
  
"Not... quite. We sure as hell put him in the car, though. A car that he then drops off at a junkyard that has no record of it arriving." Langly sounded smug. Of course he usually sounded smug. "Maybe I can't prove he's a murderer, but I can prove he's driving a stolen car, and I bet you the VIN matches one of the victims' cars. He's going _down_."  
  
"... Langly, what if he's _not_ a murderer?"  
  
"What the hell are you talking about, of course he's a murderer!"  
  
"What if he's just cleaning up after the killer?"  
  
"What the hell, Reid? Where the hell is this coming from? I'm in the middle of proving he's a killer!" Langly's annoyance seemed to radiate from the phone.  
  
"It's coming from the lack of evidence," Reid raised his voice a little and then remembered JJ was sleeping. "Everything we have is circumstantial _for murder_. Conspiracy, maybe. Aiding and abetting, definitely. Obstruction's going to take about ten minutes to prove with this image. But, what if we're only half-right? What if he's covering for someone else?"  
  
"Okay, great, it's circumstantial. _Now_. Give me a couple more hours and I'll find the rest of it."  
  
Reid would've sworn he could hear Langly rolling his eyes. "I don't want the partner, if there is one, to be able to stop now, start again later, and possibly invalidate the conviction, if we can even get one. If there's more than one, I want to make sure we get them both. He's trying to dispose of two cars, every time. You've only matched _one_ , where you can find one at all."  
  
"The other car is theoret--"  
  
"No. It _isn't_." Reid spoke slowly, firmly. "Match the cars to the dates, to the victims. The second car isn't theoretical, it's the _current victim's_ car."  
  
"No, it's gotta be the same..." Langly trailed off. "Ok. I've been staring at this too long, because you're right. And I knew you were right when you gave this to me."  
  
There was a crinkle of plastic and a garbled voice that was probably Chaz, in the background.  
  
"Yeah, I'm gonna eat something. That was absolutely braindead." Langly groaned like he was leaning back, and Reid knew what he'd look like, sitting on Chaz's couch with a pile of Twinkie wrappers next to him and his laptop leaned precariously on one knee. "Okay. Two cars. Obviously the current car isn't getting dumped until after the next murder, or I'd have caught it. So he's stashing them somewhere else."  
  
"You've checked the police impound yard?" Reid asked, hoping for once the answer was no. That would be a sensible, practical place for a police officer to hide a car for a few days.  
  
"Yeah. He's a cop; that's the first place I looked." Langly made an annoyed sound. "Where the hell aren't we looking? Public parking costs money and leaves records. Parking on the street is way the hell too obvious."  
  
"Are there residential garages?"  
  
Chaz's voice came through again, still muffled and incomprehensible.  
  
Reid ran a hand through his hair, realising he wasn't sure how long he'd been pacing the few steps in the tiny bathroom. "What did he say?"   
  
"Say it again, Villette?"  
  
"Hospitals." This time the word was clear. "Hospital parking is usually free, and they don't really pay attention to a car that's been there a few days. If it's less than a week, it's probably someone who came in through emergency and wound up admitted. Nobody ever checks hospital lots."  
  
"Hospitals." Reid repeated the word like it was a revelation. "You're right. We check airports and bus stations, because common wisdom suggests escape routes. We check public parking, and sometimes private parking the victim or a person of interest might have access to. But, there's rarely a reason to check hospitals, unless we're looking for someone we suspect was _injured_. Can you--"  
  
"Gave it to Ra-- er, Gates. I'm still checking private cameras along the routes. I'll call you back if I find anything else."  
  
"Thank you, and I love you. Completely unrelated, but both true."  
  
"Shit, thank _Villette_. He's the one with the brain, today," Langly scoffed.  
  
"I'm sure you're thanking him enough for both of us."  
  
In the background, Chaz laughed, and then registered a complaint. "Dammit, Spencer! Don't make me laugh! Ow!"

* * *

  
JJ was just hanging up the phone when Reid finally left the bathroom. "Hey, we've got pictures of--"  
  
"Natale getting out of a victim's car, at a junkyard?" Reid smiled innocently.  
  
JJ rolled her eyes and got out of bed, pulling her bag out from under it. "Who told you?"  
  
"Frank called. We've got three of--"  
  
"Six cars located, two past the end of the tape, and the one in Cherry Hill's last on the list because the video's freshest," JJ finished, raising her eyebrows at him. "Garcia called while you were in the bathroom."  
  
Reid shrugged, folding inward a little. "I was trying not to wake you up."  
  
"I know. And thanks. Really." JJ poked him in the chest with her toiletry kit, nudging him out of the way of the bathroom. "I'm going to brush my teeth. Tell me what Garcia didn't know yet."  
  
"I'm going to get dressed while you do that," Reid warned, stepping out of view of the bathroom mirror. "What makes you think I know more than you do?"  
  
"Because you'd have asked a question I didn't and set off another tangent."  
  
"Okay, I'll take that, because I _did_." Reid put the closet door between himself and the rest of the room and picked a pair of trousers that didn't look like he'd slept in them. "We've been looking for the cars that were dumped on the night of the murders, not the cars belonging to the victims on those nights. We know those are two different things. Villette pointed out we haven't checked hospital lots for the disappearing-reappearing cars."  
  
JJ spat loudly and the sink ran for a little too long. "Hospitals. Why the hell weren't we checking hospitals?"  
  
"Hospitals usually have excellent surveillance," Reid sighed and buttoned his shirt. "No one with any sense would try to dump a car recently used in a crime at a hospital, because they'd be seen doing it. But, he wasn't permanently disposing of the cars there. He was only leaving them for a few days, which wouldn't have looked strange. And again, if he wore a hat and scarf, at worst, it's someone indistinct parking a car and then walking away... and then coming back a few days later to get the car. If he's smart, he'll have left through the hospital, so the cameras pick him up like any number of other patients or visitors who have an absolute right to be leaving their cars there. Hospitals also usually have cabs waiting out front. It would be simple to just walk out the door, get in a taxi, and go somewhere closer to where he needed to be."  
  
"And if he paid cash for the cab, we'd never know, as long as he didn't take it right to his door."  
  
"Pretty much," Reid agreed, closing the closet and going back to the bed for his shoes.

* * *

  
"Is there anything we could be doing besides sitting on our asses?" Alvez asked, taking another bite of egg roll. He'd found a Chinese place they all liked and he was sticking with it. "We've already shown none of the people we were looking at could be responsible for Hanrahan, but we've only got Natale for car theft."  
  
"Conspiracy after the fact," Reid corrected, from where he stood between an overloaded coathook and the back of the door. "He's not just a police detective, he's the lead detective on the case -- or he was at the time. He's disposing of a victim's car. It's not great, but it's definitely not just car theft. I'm still vaguely concerned it's not just him, but I've gone back through increasingly larger lists, from before we narrowed it down this far, and even using Agent Todd's criteria, there's nothing here. I found a few potential matches, but Garcia's been able to prove they were elsewhere at the time of most of the murders. Bars, jobs, hospitals, one was in jail for a week on a drunk and disorderly."  
  
"Hence my question: Isn't there anything else we could be doing?"  
  
Prentiss dropped an empty soup container into the tiny bin she sat next to. "We look at what we have, again, and see if this changes anything."  
  
Simmons was closest to the white board, so he held his hand out, and Rossi passed him a marker. "Let's look at Natale, first, since we're all thinking it. The bodies were discovered on his shift, and he became the lead detective on the case. We all know he'd have been able to arrange that if he was the one committing the murders, or if he was conspiring with the person who was. It's less about making things happen on this end and more about making sure the killings happened in a way that the investigation would have to go to him, because he'd be the one on the rota at that point."  
  
"He's got access to the drug that was used on the victims, even if he hasn't refilled it in almost four years," JJ added, pointing with her chopsticks. "And Reid says it would still be usable after that long."  
  
"Reid's right," Lewis chimed in. "We obviously now have photographic evidence of Natale disposing of one of the victims' cars, but not on the same day that victim was killed."  
  
"He told us he was in Philly for Hanrahan's murder, but it turns out his cousin was driving, and she was supposed to wear his hat at the tollbooth?" Alvez looked at JJ for confirmation, and she nodded.  
  
"Oh, yeah. I suggested he might have been worried about her becoming a target, because she was driving his personal vehicle. Trying not to freak out the witness with the fact that her cousin is probably a murderer." JJ shook her head. "And it really is probable. That's the one that damns him. He knew he was under suspicion and he went out of his way to establish an alibi for the time of the murder, except he used someone who didn't understand what he was doing, so she turned around and turned him in, by _accident_."  
  
"If he's not the killer, why is he not driving his own car to Philly?" Rossi, who'd stolen the only desk chair in the room, leaned forward and it creaked under him. "There's plenty of time for him to have disposed of the car, if he came back when his cousin did. He couldn't have killed _that victim_ in that time, but he could definitely have driven out and moved the car. But, he didn't go to Philly. He sent his cousin in his place. I don't think he's just moving the cars."  
  
"It's still circumstantial," Reid argued, banging his head on the hook behind him and knocking JJ's coat onto his back. "We can charge him with several things, with some amount of certainty, but I don't think murder is one of them, right now. And I would like it to be, very soon, so that I can stop spending time in this room."


	25. Chapter 25

"The wonderful Agent Gates just found Claire Hanrahan's car in..." Garcia paused, but no one guessed. "A hosptal parking garage. Video has a man driving it in, just about the right time -- we're not sure about time of death, but it's close enough to that range -- and then walking away toward the stairs."  
  
"We know where the car is. If Reid's right, and there's somebody else, they're not going to be able to get the car without being seen." Alvez grinned. "Whoever this is, we've got them, now."  
  
"We've _definitely_ got them, all right." Garcia sounded even more cheerful than usual. "Video in the garage shows us what is probably a man in what looks like a reversible coat and a knit cap, both dark enough colours to be distorted by the yellow light."  
  
"It's dark grey," Reid said, quietly, "and if you flip it the other way, it's dark blue and it says 'Police' on the back."  
  
"Spencer, my dear, you are probably right about that, because in the stairs, we get him folding the collar down, and we still wouldn't have gotten his face, but he looks up like one of the doors above him just closed, and that is definitely Natale."  
  
Reid closed his eyes, squeezed them shut, and took a deep, shaky breath. "Circumstantial. It's still circumstantial."  
  
JJ stepped close enough that he could feel her standing there, but she didn't touch him. "Reid? It's one more piece."  
  
"We can't place him _with_ the victims -- with _any_ of the victims," Reid argued, frustrated. "Obviously he's involved, but--"  
  
"We're still looking," Garcia reminded him, gently. "But, even if we can only get him for car theft or maybe conspiracy to commit murder, he's going away for a very long--"  
  
"He's going to come up with some story, and the jury is going to believe him, _because of who he is_." Reid opened his eyes again, hands in his pockets, nails digging into his palms. "Look at the _profile_. No matter who it is, we're going to have trouble in court, unless we have incontrovertible proof they committed murder. All of these people are fairly well known in the community. They're known for being helpful, friendly, and kind. They go out of their way to improve the community for the people who live in it, and these people are going to bend over backward to find a reason not to convict them. And yes, I'm including Natale. Whatever I think of him, personally, the drawer full of commendations is what we're facing."  
  
"That's a little pessimistic, even for you, Reid." Prentiss's eyebrows went up, and then her hand. "But, I know what you're seeing. And I know you have a point. It's probably not going to be that bad, but it's definitely going to be bad. Come on, we got this far already. Good call on the hospitals."  
  
"That was _Villette_." Reid raised his eyes from the floor, looking entirely unimpressed. "Garcia, what do you have on the payphones?"  
  
"Hospitals have payphones, because they always have payphones, but they also usually have cabs, if you hang around emergency, and I know this for reasons we're not discussing, but you can be very glad I know it." Garcia paused.  
  
"I am," Reid assured her, turning an all-too-innocent look on Prentiss when she side-eyed him.  
  
"So, while we have phone records in that range from the hospital, only two of them are for car service, and they're both women. However he left, he didn't call a cab, and he didn't get an Uber from his own phone. The payphones by the junkyards, though... I've got what might be a hit on a junkyard we don't have any video from, but the phone is standing in the yard, behind the building, so you kind of have to be there to use it. I've got a muffled male calling himself Joe Barnett asking to be picked up at a bar a few blocks away. Now, this is a weird hour for anyone to be calling from a bar, but of course, he's not calling from the bar, which also has a payphone, but it's _inside_. The guy sounds like he's had a few, and asks to be dropped off at an address that's nowhere near Natale's apartment, but could be between the restaurant and _Montrose_ 's house. Villette tells me that with the traffic and the timing on the lights, it's a fairly likely route for someone who knew the neighbourhood and was headed that way."  
  
"The lights..." JJ blinked. "It's not a high-traffic area, at that hour. That or it's timed for express traffic, but I'm guessing it's not."  
  
Alvez nodded at her, as he picked up the thread. "Because Natale isn't going to want to pull somebody over where he's going to be witnessed. Either it's a low-occupancy neighbourhood or it's offices -- places that are closed by then."  
  
"And it is... offices!" Garcia sounded cheerful. "And I'm sending the area back to Arroway for a closer look, while I finish up with the payphones. He made a mistake with Montrose, calling from the junkyard. He's not going to do that again, if he's smart, but we can all hope he's stupid!"  
  
"Thank you, Garcia." Reid got to it first.  
  
"You'll get him. And when you do he will be sorry he ever--"  
  
"Committed a murder," Reid finished for her, before she could remind them all it might be personal, for him.  
  
"Committed a murder. Right. We'll go with that."

* * *

"We've got some extremely suggestive circumstantial evidence," Simmons ventured, looking around the too-tight room. "It will almost definitely get us an indictment. But, Reid's right about the conviction. People are going to be looking for any excuse to return a not guilty for _murder_. Obstruction and tampering are in front of a judge in the morning, and with the cars, we're definitely getting that. But, we may want to go with conspiracy and offer a lesser sentence. People around here might be more comfortable coming back guilty for that."  
  
"Everything he is makes what he's done _worse_ , not better," Reid argued. "And even from the standpoint that he may have actually protected the community from these people's work, which we can be relatively certain he didn't, if he'd just _shot them_ , I might be willing to do that. But, he didn't. Six people, Matt. He tortured six people to death. He cut them open, pulled out their intestines, and let them freeze to death."  
  
"I love that your line isn't death, it's cause of death," JJ remarked drily, and Reid turned on her, his lips thin.  
  
"Change of venue," Rossi cut in, before Reid could get another word in. "Under the circumstances, I think it's appropriate. We're accusing a well-loved police detective of murder, and yes, that's not going to go well, here, and we know it. We charge him with murder, and we petition for a change of venue. I'm pretty sure turning over what we have to the District Attorney, here, is not a good idea, if we can help it. And this is the DA's case, because it doesn't cross state lines. It's a multiple homicide like any other, except for the part where we're trying to charge a cop."  
  
Reid took a slow breath and nodded. "We need to look again at Hazlett. If we can connect him to the murder of a witness, we get a federal prosecutor."  
  
"The problem is, we don't know if Hazlett was a witness," Rossi reminded him. "Hazlett was dead before we could interview him, and he never said anything to anyone else -- which would be hearsay, but under the circumstances, it would definitely establish that he was a witness. All we've got is that he 'looked sketchy' when the busboy started talking about the murder."  
  
"Okay, okay, change of venue." Reid held up his hands and shook his head.

* * *

"Tell me you're the only people in the room, and then put me on speaker," Garcia demanded, and Prentiss did so. "And now, tell me you love me, but hold your applause, because I'm just getting started. _You_ have Natale on video with Montrose."  
  
"You've got him?" JJ grinned, excited. "Where--"  
  
"No, I don't have him, _you_ have him. Or, rather, Camden PD has him." Garcia paused, keys clattering. "What I have just sent you is the response I got from an insurance company, further down the street from where--" She cleared her throat. "--Joe Barnett was dropped off, when I requested access to the video from that night. A nice wide window that might've had both the abduction and the removal of the victim's car. But, what they told me was that the video was taken the next day by a police officer investigating a car theft in the area. The video is in the building."  
  
Lewis held up a finger and called Sanderson. "Lieutenant? Agent Lewis. How would we access a video tape that was probably brought as evidence for a car theft? ... It is? ... And they'd be able to find it by date? I'm afraid we don't have a case number-- No, it's related. A video picked up in relation to another crime may show something related to these murders Right place at the right time. ... Okay. ... Okay, thank you, Lieutenant." She smiled at the team. "I'm going to go downstairs and see if they can find that for us."

* * *

"Did you see it?" Alvez asked, noticing Lewis's hands were empty, and assuming she'd watched the footage downstairs. "Is it him?"  
  
"Not only did I not see it, there was no video evidence checked in that day, or the next day." Lewis raised her eyebrows. "I think we need to talk to the person who handed over the video."  
  
"I'll get the photos together," Rossi offered, wedging himself carefully out of the chair he'd taken in that awkward corner. "Everyone who worked on this case, or do we want more of an ethnic spread?"  
  
"Start with everyone who worked the case, and fill it out with some similar faces. Get our short list in there, too. We know where they were when the murder was committed; we don't know where they were the next day, during business hours." Prentiss glanced at Reid.  
  
"Hm? That should work, but we're kind of stacking the deck. Make sure we have people who aren't related to this case, which is obvious most of the time, but this is a ridiculous number of people we're asking this person to look at. And it's going to be an even larger number, once it's laid out properly."  
  
"You know I've been doing this since before you were born," Rossi teased, as Reid tried to squeeze out of his way, backing into the coathook again.  
  
"No, you haven't." Reid raised an eyebrow, meeting the jest, as he tilted his head out of the way of the metal hook, catching his hair on it. Great just what he needed. "The current method wasn't codified until sometime in the nineties."  
  
"Weren't you born in the nineties?" Rossi shot back, faux innocent, as he pulled the door open, looking at Reid around the edge of it.  
  
His hair finally free of the coathook, Reid looked back at JJ, who was struggling to look less amused than she was. "Back at the dawn of man, the early Bureau was hiring agents without basic math skills."  
  
"Says the man who got an exemption because he couldn't shoot straight." Rossi pronounced the words, as if savouring each one. "Are you coming with me, or not?"  
  
Reid squeezed himself back out of the corner, around the edge of the door, to follow Rossi. "I got _better_ at that," he protested as he pulled the door closed behind them, not heavy enough to cut off the laughter from behind it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT IS WRITTEN. I can now promise we end at 28 chapters!


	26. Chapter 26

"It's good of you to meet with us on such short notice, Mr Atrisco." Rossi leaned against the counter in the closed reception area. It was late in the day, and almost everyone had left. "But, we've got a bit of a problem, and we're hoping you can help us out. We have absolutely no doubt that someone came to pick up the video, that day, but there's no record of the Camden Police ever having received it. Now, we're hoping whoever it was just got called out to something else and forgot to check it in, and it's still floating around in the trunk of a car, somewhere. But, in order to figure out which car, we have to figure out who came to get it. So, if you could just take a look at some photos, and see if you recognise anyone..."  
  
"It's been more than a week!" Atrisco shrugged powerfully, head tipping back as if to escape his rising shoulders. "I can tell you he had a moustache." His brow wrinkled. "No, he must've signed for it. I bet security made him sign for it. Hang on. No, you know what, come back and talk to her, yourself. We don't own the building, we just have the bottom floor, so there's one office for the whole building, and it's in the back. But, I must've spent ten minutes talking to the guy, while he filled out his forms."  
  
"Ten minutes, and you don't remember his face?" Rossi managed to look a lot more surprised than he was. People were terrible with faces. Ten witnesses to the same robbery would describe the robber in at least seven completely incompatible ways. On a good day. "You don't have the video of him coming in, do you?"  
  
"Ask Sheila, when we get there. Just around the corner, here." Atrisco led the way. "But, I see dozens of people in a day. Their faces aren't usually that important. The cop came in and asked about a stolen car. I told him a little about the neighbourhood and that he probably wasn't going to find a witness at that hour, and then I brought him back to Sheila and went back to work."  
  
As he brought them to the door, Reid handed Atrisco a thin ring binder. "Why don't you stay out here and take a look at these pictures, and see if anyone looks familiar. Take all the time you need, Mr Atrisco, we'll be just in there talking to Sheila."  
  
"Don't you need to show it to her, too?" Atrisco asked, looking between the two agents.   
  
"Yeah, but we have to show you _separately_ ," Rossi clarified, tapping lightly on the door and then opening it. "Can't have you consulting each other instead of your own memories." He stepped into the room, badge first, and nodded at the woman sitting at the desk. "Sorry to bother you, but we're trying to figure out _which_ Camden PD officer picked up some video a couple of weeks ago. Mr Atrisco tells us that you'd be the one to ask about that."  
  
"Atrisco..." The woman gestured for more information and raised her eyebrows.  
  
"First floor," Reid offered. "From the insurance firm."  
  
"Oh, that ... _guy_." The woman nodded. "Sheila Teague, and you're definitely in the right place. Can you give me dates? Times?"  
  
Rossi rattled off the date Alex Montrose had disappeared, and then, "We're told an officer came by the next day to pick up the video that might've caught a car theft, that night, but whoever it was didn't log it, and we're trying to track it down."  
  
"Yeah, sorry, we only keep video for five days." Teague shrugged and flipped through a paper log. "I got it, though. The guy's name. He signed it 'Tony Liberti'."  
  
Reid stood up a little straighter, looking more alert, and Rossi huffed a laugh. "Liberti? Well. You don't happen to remember what this _Officer Liberti_ looked like, do you?"  
  
"Pretty sure I got his ass on video, but... _not any more_." Teague sighed. "But, yeah, the guy's like... between the two of yous, dark hair, got a nice tan like a Sicilian or something, got that look like he spends too much time in the gym." She paused, gesturing at her face. "Not the muscles, but, you know... _the look_. Used to taking himself too seriously."  
  
"If we show you some pictures, do you think you can pick out his face?" Reid asked, hopefully.  
  
Teague looked back and forth between them. "What I'm hearing is there is no Officer Tony Liberti. You think the thief came in here and got the video. But, why? We're digital. If he ignored it, it would've gone away."  
  
"To make it look like someone already checked, so no one would look again." Reid stared intently at nothing. "He just had to make sure the police thought they had it for four more days, at which point it would've been deleted."  
  
"Let me go get the book back from Mr Atrisco, and we'll see if he's spotted anyone in it." Rossi nodded at Teague. "And then I'll bring it to you, so you can see if anyone looks familiar."  
  
He stepped out into the hall where Atrisco crouched against the all, holding the book in both hands.  
  
"I think it's one of these guys, but I can't tell because he had a big moustache. These must be old pictures." Atrisco turned the book so Rossi could see it and pointed at one face on one page, then turned to another and pointed again.  
  
Natale and the guy who kind of looked like him. But, not Taverna from Burglary, or anyone else they'd had an eye on.  
  
"Can you stay right here another few minutes? I just want to show this to Sheila, and then I'll come back and you can initial your choices. We want to keep this official."  
  
Atrisco looked at his watch and made an uncertain sound. "I gotta call my wife..."  
  
"Just a few more minutes, and you'll be on your way," Rossi promised holding up one hand in a calming gesture as he took the book back with the other. He turned to Reid, who hovered in the doorway behind him, and handed over the book.  
  
"Ms Teague, if you could just have a look..." Reid crossed the room again and handed the book to Teague, who paged through it quickly, first.  
  
"None of them have moustaches." She paused. "Okay, no, this guy kind of does, but not..." She held her fingers over her lip to demonstrate that it was clearly not a small moustache.  
  
"Do you have a whiteboard marker?" Reid asked, with a hint of a smile. "They're in plastic sleeves. You could draw moustaches on them, if it helps."  
  
Teague went straight for a desk drawer with a surprised laugh and came back, after a bit of shuffling, with a thin black marker. She sketched moustaches on a few faces, then studied them a moment, before wiping them all off and then drawing again, this time with a great deal more certainty.  
  
"No," she murmured, "the eyes... There's..."  
  
Pages turned and she rested a finger on the picture of Natale's look-alike, scribbling a moustache on. "Like that, but not..."  
  
Another page, and she stopped, pointing at the photo of John Donati. "No, but I think I used to go out with his brother."  
  
The next page took another moustache, and she tapped it. "There. That's him. Either he shaved it for the photo or the moustache was fake, but that's him."  
  
Reid nodded, hoping the glee didn't show in his eyes. _Natale_. "I'm just going to slide that out of the plastic, and if you could initial it on the back? With, ah, a real pen?"  
  
Teague snorted and grabbed the one on top of her keyboard, scrawling 'ST' on the back of the photo. "Why do I think this guy's in a whole lot of trouble?"  
  
Reid met her eyes and gave her a small smile. "I'm not allowed to comment on that."  
  
"Mm-hmm." Teague nodded and raised a sceptical eyebrow.  
  
"We'll need to get an actual statement from you, at some point soon, about what went on that day. Would you rather get that out of the way, or come to the station after work?"  
  
"Why don't I come by and see you later? I've got another hour of watching those... ah... people upstairs, and then I gotta make sure all the people are out of the building before I lock up."

* * *

"Two witnesses, and the person who retrieved the video claimed to be Natale's neighbour." Reid jabbed the book at Prentiss, who plucked it out of his hand. "It's him. We have obstruction and tampering with evidence, but we still don't have murder. Or even abduction!"  
  
"Reid, we're getting closer, and you know it. How many years have you been doing this? You know some cases are like this." Prentiss looked him over, concern plain on her face. "You all right?"  
  
"I have a headache." The words came easily, and Reid flicked a hand dismissively and then rubbed it over his eyes.  
  
"You probably shouldn't be in the field, yet. This is the second time we've done this to you in six months." Prentiss offered the observation as she might an apology.  
  
"I'm fine," Reid insisted, an annoyed edge to the words. "It's just the headaches, again. I'm just on edge because my head hurts. I'm _fine_."  
  
It wasn't true. Not really. He certainly didn't have the sort of headache that would make him sharp and impatient, but he wasn't about to admit that Prentiss was right. He shouldn't be in the field. He didn't _want_ to be in the field. He wanted to go home and lie down and be no-one for a day or two, and then maybe spend some quality time, in which no one was trying to kill them, with Langly. He almost wanted to do that first, but he was terrified he'd fall apart.  
  
He almost didn't answer the phone when it rang, but in the fraction of a second after the first ring, he realised that was his work phone, and that Prentiss was still looking at him. Somehow he managed to hit the right button without looking, bringing it up to his ear.  
  
"Reid."  
  
"I got the lying shitbiscuit." Langly sounded excited, the words sharp and clipped and the space between them just a hint too wide. "Penny found the place the video was supposed to be, and it's still there. Sort of. I'd explain, but I think your head would explode. But, I have some douchebag, and I think it's your douchebag, on video, with some guy who eventually gets out of his car and into douchebag's car, which isn't douchebag's car, it's the other vic's car."  
  
It took Reid a moment to translate what he'd been told. "Natale. You got the video from the insurance company, with Montrose. I thought that was deleted after five days?"  
  
"It was, but deleted doesn't always mean the same thing everywhere. I'll explain later, when I can draw it on a piece of paper for you. Penny knows what I did, and it's not that weird."  
  
"Does he have a moustache, in the video?" Reid asked, thinking of the interviews.  
  
"Wha-- Uh, _no_? You didn't tell me to look for a guy with a _moustache_. You told me to look for Detective Angelo Natale, who does not have a moustache in his photos." Langly sounded entirely offended by the suggestion that he might've missed something.  
  
Reid took a deep breath. "I need you to try to get me one more video, from the same place. It's the next morning, at about ten-thirty, but _in_ the insurance offices. I'm looking for someone who talks to a short, balding man at the front desk, and is then led back out to the lobby, by that man. That someone should be the man with the moustache. He's _probably_ dressed as a uniformed officer."  
  
"Fifteen minutes. I'll call you back."  
  
As Langly hung up, Prentiss's phone started to ring.  
  
"It's Garcia," she said, as she answered it.  
  
Reid felt the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "We've got him abducting Montrose."


	27. Chapter 27

Natale was already in custody, so there was less to do than usual, at that point. They didn't have to take him by surprise, because they already had. Still, it took another day and a half to wrap up the paperwork, and the entire time, Reid could feel the idea of home dragging at him, pounding on the inside of his skull. He was almost there. All he had to do was put things in order, write up the last of his notes, and sign a few things. He wasn't going to be allowed to give evidence at the trial -- which wouldn't be for a few months, anyway -- because of the personal conflict between himself and Natale. There was no sense in providing an opening to bring that up. Either way, the abduction video was most likely damning enough, when combined with the frames of Natale disposing of the victim's car, but one could never be sure.  
  
But, by the time he was on the plane, Friday afternoon, the thought of his living room made his chest ache with the kind of longing that was supposed to be reserved for significant others. His hands ached at the thought of curling up in the muted sunlight on the couch, with a hot cup of coffee and a book he'd read a hundred times, and just passing out there. He needed to be home. He needed everything to just stop, for a few days.  
  
But, he'd never admit he shouldn't have been in the field.  
  
Of course, Langly was picking him up at the airport, so he wasn't going to be alone. Tonight. He'd give Langly tonight, and then remind him he had other things to do, in the morning.  
  
He just needed two days in which he didn't have to be anyone, including himself.  
  
"I'm taking the weekend off."  
  
Prentiss looked at Reid over the top of the magazine she was reading. "You... have the weekend off. It's a weekend."  
  
Reid didn't move anything but his lips, eyes closed and his seat tipped slightly back. "No, I mean I'm taking the weekend. If anything happens, I'm on leave. You will see me on Monday, but nobody call me this weekend. I'm turning off the ringer on my phone and the volume down on the answering machine, and I will not be answering anything until Monday."  
  
"You all right, man?" Alvez sat forward, curious and concerned.  
  
Reid didn't quite answer the question. "I'm just going to spend the weekend in a dark room with a lot of coffee."  
  
"Oh, no." JJ looked up from her tablet. "Again?"  
  
"Again," Reid lied, knowing it was the better choice of things they could think were wrong with him. "It's fine. I just need a couple of days, so it doesn't get serious."

* * *

Langly watched Reid come down the steps from the plane, and he was absolutely sure something was wrong, and mostly sure that if that ass-grabbing sleazeball detective wasn't in jail, he was going to ruin the guy's credit before dinner. Reid looked _bad_ , worse as Langly watched him walk toward the terminal, head slightly down, clutching his elbows, both bags slung across his back. Whatever the hell this was, it was not good.  
  
And as Reid came toward him, Langly held out a hand, half-expecting a hug, but Reid stopped just out of reach.  
  
"Can we go home now?" The words should have been pleading, but they were as flat as the look in Reid's eyes, which never quite came above the middle of Langly's chest.  
  
"Yeah, hey, let's blow this popsicle stand. Your place or mine?" Langly recovered quickly, blowing on his hands and then shoving them into his jacket pockets, as they cut through the terminal building.  
  
"Mine, please. I need to be home."  
  
Langly blinked a couple of times and nearly swallowed his lips before he managed a sentence. "Yeah, I get that. I do."  
  
He could remember what it was like, before they moved back into something they could call home, that need to be somewhere more stable, better protected than a car or a cheap motel. Maybe not quite the same thing, but close enough. This was probably more like coming back from Saltville, this last time, that need to get out of the creepy surreality of stepping into the past from a future that shouldn't make sense.  
  
"Any problems with my car?" Reid asked, with some hint of distant interest, which was more than he'd managed recently.  
  
"Your car?" Langly cleared his throat and smiled awkwardly, then held up his hands in a panicky calming gesture, when Reid's eyes landed on him, suddenly sharp. "Your car's fine. There's nothing wrong with your car. ... We still have to talk about your car."  
  
Reid stopped, there, in the middle of the airport, with all the cameras on them, and his eyes were no longer disinterested. In fact, that look might be described as a 'burning gaze' by someone with a bit more poetry in them than Langly had, and all Langly could think was that he was in trouble. And on camera. At the same time.  
  
"What happened to my _car_?"  
  
"You know how you keep not getting that seat fixed, because you'd have to leave it in the shop for a couple of days? Yeah, after I got stabbed in the balls driving the crazy hippy up to you-know-where, I took it in _for you_. I don't know how you put up with it this long." Langly shifted uncomfortably, stretched his neck. "And while it was there, I had the guy look it over, change a couple of belts, replace a few wires -- your right turn signal blinks at the same rate as the left one, now -- and --"  
  
"You had them replace--"  
  
"I told him it was all original parts! We made sure to get the right parts, not just parts that fit. You saw what I put Frohike through with the _kitchen_ , and I just did that about your car, okay? It works like it's supposed to, everything's been cleaned and oiled, and I put all your crap back in the glovebox. Promise." Langly held out the keys. "And Villette said I had to tell you this because it's really important, okay, so I need you to just shut up and listen to me for a minute. You don't have to pay me back. You owe me nothing. No strings. No obligations. BUT! But. Small print, here, if you want to pay me back, because you're completely deranged, I will _let you_ do it. ... And here's the receipt."  
  
He slid it out of another pocket and held it out, both hands extended in offering to the terrifyingly angry fed -- _his_ terrifyingly angry fed.  
  
Reid plucked the keys out of Langly's hand without a word, eyes unfocused as he looked past Langly, and in that moment, Langly realised how much attention they were drawing. But, the only thing Reid said was, "Where did you park?"  
  
Langly led the way, itemising every single touch up, every wire replaced, every product used, where they'd been manufactured, what things were made of and why -- he couldn't stop talking. It was a thing, sometimes, when he was stuck with an angry fed and had run out of excuses. Not that he thought he needed an excuse, but he'd also expected Reid to come home in better shape than this. A lot better shape.  
  
Sure, he'd been stressed on the phone, but he'd been on a case with no end in sight. The case was over, the shitstain was in jail, and... Reid was still not in a condition to be told Langly had been fucking with his car. He wasn't in a condition to do anything but go home and probably stare at the wall. And that, Langly thought, was really not a good sign.  
  
Reid made it all the way to the car, silently, and didn't say another word until he pulled the door shut behind him and it slammed unexpectedly, without even a creak. "You had the hinge rebalanced?"  
  
"Everything. This car is in almost as good condition as when the first owner drove it off the lot, but a lot of that's because you actually take care of it. It just needed a few things I didn't even know you could fix. Like that god damn _door_."  
  
Reid finally laughed, a faintly miserable sound, as he rested his forehead against the backs of his hands on the steering wheel. "That door has been like that for as long as I've owned this car."  
  
"And now it's not, because it actually works like a door is supposed to." Langly opened the glove compartment and threw the receipt into it. "And the receipt's in the glovebox, because I know you're going to care, at some point, and that way you don't have to ask me. And you don't have to pay me back. I was driving your car, at the time, and it just _bothered me_. Well, the seat did."  
  
"That's certainly one word for it." Reid took a deep breath, one visible knuckle white with the strength of his grip. "I forgot to ask: are _you_ okay?"  
  
"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm... I'm good." Langly blinked in confusion, and then it dawned on him. "Oh, you mean the seat? Shock and horror that I was almost Timmy the Nutless Squirrel, but no real damage except to my pants. I mean, no offence, but good thing it wasn't you."  
  
Another miserable sound that might've been a laugh. "I know -- I _fundamentally understand_ that what you did needed to be done. I know I was procrastinating about it. At some point in the future, I'm going to be incredibly grateful that you took care of it. But, right now, I just needed to come home and have everything be the same, and it's _not_. Later, I will apologise. Later, I will thank you. When you can look at me and know I mean it."  
  
Reid sat up, looking like a ghost of himself, knuckle-prints pressed into the skin of his forehead. He adjusted the mirror and started the car. "But, right now, I don't think I can mean anything. I don't know if I can _be_ anything. And I need to get home, before I do something I'm going to regret, tomorrow."  
  
"Okay, in your not meaning, not being state, can you tell me what you want for dinner? Vaguely? 'No' is okay, I'll just get Greek--"  
  
"Greek. Let's do that," Reid agreed, voice still pleasant, but hollow. He didn't sound sad or angry, Langly noticed, just _extremely distracted_. It was a close cousin to the 'receptionist still talking while scheduling an appointment with one hand and accepting paperwork with the other' voice, almost mechanically polite.  
  
"Chicken?" Langly asked, already expecting the answer.  
  
"Chicken," Reid agreed.  
  
They were almost back to the apartment, when Langly asked, "Do you want me to call Villette? Would it h--"  
  
" _No_."  
  
"If you're worried about it, he's off the--"  
  
" _No_."  
  
"Okay, then. Just you and me, then." Langly nodded and sat up a little straighter, wishing he could call Byers. Byers would know what to do with this, way better than he did.  
  
"Langly..."  
  
"I'm not leaving until the food is delivered, because _you're_ not going to answer the door."  
  
Reid shot him an alarmed look.  
  
"Penny told me. She said if you ever got into a weird funk -- her words, 'weird funk' -- I was supposed to get you a blanket and a cup of coffee, and make sure I didn't leave you alone until there was food you didn't have to cook in the fridge for the next few days, because once I walked out the door, I wasn't getting back in." Langly folded his arms and leaned back against the seat, noticing it didn't creak, settle, or get stabby. "She says you do this, sometimes, and I'm supposed to make sure you're taken care of, because you're not going to do it yourself, and you're not going to _let_ anyone else do it for you."  
  
"Tell her I'm hanging up on her if she calls me," Reid muttered, parking where he always parked and reflexively checking for Bollinger as he got out of the car. The last thing he needed, now, was Bollinger, if only because he wasn't sure he could stop himself from punching the photographer several times. But, he hadn't seen Bollinger since before Christmas, and he probably wouldn't, now that Narcisse was dead.  
  
And Langly could see that whole train of thought in the way Reid's eyes took in the alley. He followed close behind Reid, into the building and up the stairs. And he knew Reid didn't stop for the mail so that he _would_ \-- a half-hearted attempt to lose him in the lobby, and Langly, of course, was offended. But, he was a lot more afraid than even that, so he stayed that one step behind, all the way to the door, slipping in right on Reid's heels.  
  
"I'm a grown adult, Langly. I can take care of myself," Reid complained, dropping his bags by the door, before he cleared the apartment and put his gun back in the safe.   
  
And Langly knew not to talk until he was done. "I know you can. But, you don't _have to_. Look, I'm not staying. You've made it clear you don't want me here. But, I'm more afraid of Penny than I am of you, so take off your coat and put your ass on the couch. Once the food's here, I'll do your laundry, and then I'll go."  
  
"I'll be okay," Reid promised, not bringing his eyes more than about a foot above the floor as he took off his coat and hung it up. "I'll be okay before Monday."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One! More! Chapter!


	28. Chapter 28

Reid did finally sit down, and he let Langly do... whatever it was Langly was doing. Really, he was mostly ignoring Langly, and that seemed to be working all right. He'd curled up on the couch, in the last light of the day, and Langly had wrapped him in the fluffy blanket, taken the shoes off him, and then brought over the coffee maker and plugged it in ... somewhere. Probably where that lamp he never turned on was usually plugged in. And now there was an almost-finished pot of coffee within arm's reach, and it would stay warm until he got through it.  
  
This wasn't normal at all, but he'd take it.  
  
Any minute, there was going to be food, but Langly was in his kitchen cooking, _anyway_. It changed the smell of the apartment, and weirdly, that was still okay. It shouldn't have been, but it was still home. It was just a different kind of 'home'. This was what it smelled like when people who loved him were ... not his mother, really. Not that she hadn't been a good cook, once, but the last time she'd been down for a few days, he'd almost boarded up the kitchen in self defence. Less that the food wasn't edible and more that she'd almost set the kitchen on fire four times in two days, with no food to show for it, and he'd lost three dishtowels and a cup in the process. He still felt guilty about Boston, but he'd really run out of choices, and she was getting better, again. She really _was_. And he had to take advantage of that, before she got worse again. She wasn't well. She never would be. But, she might be well enough to visit, without setting his kitchen on fire. Easter, maybe -- he'd planned to see her anyway.  
  
Which wasn't the point at all. The point was that someone else was cooking in his kitchen, and this wasn't a problem for some unforeseen reason. He still needed Langly to go home, but maybe Garcia was right. Maybe not _right this minute_.  
  
And then Langly was squeezing past the coffee table, and Reid realised he had no idea why. He looked up, the confusion obvious on his face.  
  
"Food's going to be here by the time I get to the door," Langly explained, careful not to touch Reid as he passed, awkward though it was.  
  
Reid made a noncommittal sound and settled back against the arm of the couch, pulling the blanket up to his chin. He didn't have to have an opinion about that, so he just wasn't going to. It was just Langly. He could be no-one in front of Langly, at least for a little while. Not for too long, but maybe just for now. 

* * *

By the time Langly had finished doing the laundry, Reid still hadn't eaten, having fallen asleep on the couch, with his hand still wrapped around the cup of coffee on the table. He woke up to Langly crouched next to him, brushing the hair out of his face.  
  
"Hey, you going to be okay? You want me to make sure you get to bed, before I go?" Langly looked concerned, but he also looked like he'd take Reid's word whatever the answer.  
  
"Langly?" Reid licked his lips and swallowed, eyes still strangely unfocused. "Stay?"  
  
"I'll go the minute you tell me to, but if you want me here, I'm already here." The sentence made all the sense it needed to, even if it didn't quite go the way sentences were supposed to.  
  
"I can't _be_ , right now. I can't be anything. I have to figure out where I left myself and paste me back on." Reid realised he wasn't making as much sense as he could be, but there weren't really better ways to phrase it that actually conveyed the essence of the experience. "I'm not going to be enjoyable."  
  
"You say that like I haven't been entertaining myself for most of my life. Come on, half the time we spend in the same room is on opposite sides of it, working on two completely different things." Langly grinned and shrugged. "And I like the half where we're naked on the same side of the room, working on the same thing, too, but that seems a little less applicable."  
  
"A little," Reid agreed. "I'm being completely selfish, right now."  
  
"Uh, hey, we all almost got killed, what, not even two weeks ago, and you've been propping up _Villette_. Me? Least damage. Nobody got near me, it wasn't _my_ mom, I didn't do the equivalent of boxing a two-ton gorilla with fists of steel... I'm really pretty okay, as these things go. Villette actually got _hurt_. And you? You were with him, when it happened. You saved him. You _were_ him. And then, unlike him, you went back to work, and walked into some ass-grabbing serial killer who decided to fuck up your day. So, I mean, if anybody gets to be selfish right now, _probably you_." Langly shrugged again, tipping his head to the side. "Which is good, because it's gonna be me again, by the middle of next week."  
  
"At least you're aware of it," Reid offered, knowing that wasn't the right thing to say, but not really having the presence of mind to find something better.  
  
"Hey, I know me at _least_ as well as you know Villette." Langly shifted so he was actually sitting on the floor.  
  
That caught Reid's attention, and he stared at Langly, trying to phrase his confusion, before he finally just gave up. "I should eat."  
  
"You should. You want me to warm up the chicken part of that for you?"  
  
"No. I'll forget what I'm doing." Reid twisted himself into an upright position, trying to figure out how he'd gotten so badly tangled in one blanket during such a short nap. When he settled again, he looked blankly at Langly, who put a box of takeout in his hands.  
  
"Eat," Langly said, picking up the cup of cold coffee and drinking it, before pouring another hot cup from the pot. "Here's fresh coffee. I'm going to go put the laundry away."  
  
"Thank you," Reid said, quietly. He was sure he was supposed to be doing something. What was he supposed to be--  
  
Langly got up and handed him a plastic fork.  
  
Food. Right. Eat, sleep, everything would be all right in the morning. It always was. Except he had that nagging sense that one day, it wouldn't be. That one day, he'd wake up and realise nobody told him he'd lost his mind. He'd end up like his mother, and just like with his mother, over time, everyone would fade away.  
  
If he didn't fade away, first.  
  
The food was cold, and he couldn't taste it, but he ate, because it was something to do. It was something he was supposed to do, he was pretty sure, which was an improvement on how he usually was when he got like this. Like the time he'd taken a whole weekend, completely forgotten to eat, and everything in the fridge had gone bad before he remembered to even consider it. Yet another reason to only buy non-perishables, as if ending up out of state for an unspecified number of days at a moment's notice wasn't enough of a reason.  
  
He was tired. He understood that he was tired, but on some fundamental level that went far beyond just needing a night's sleep, which meant he was probably going to keep passing out in the middle of things until it stopped. And that was fine. He knew what that was. He just hadn't realised it was that bad, until a couple days ago, by which point, there'd been nothing he could do about it.  
  
But, now, he was home. He was home, and the only things he had to do were eat and sleep, and he was pretty sure he could do those things. And Langly had taken care of everything else, which should have been a lot more concerning, but he knew Langly spent enough time in his space to not do anything he couldn't do right. And after they'd cleaned up after Narcisse, he was sure Langly had a better idea than most people did. And either way, he was sure he was supposed to care, but he couldn't.  
  
He woke up again, and Langly was sitting on the coffee table, in front of him.  
  
"Hey." Langly made no move to touch him, which Reid both appreciated and was distantly saddened by. "You okay?"  
  
"No." Reid blinked, and his eyes burned as the lids scraped over them. He'd been staring into space, again.  
  
"You need some sleep, and you shouldn't do that on the couch. You'll screw up your back or something." Langly held out his hands, offering to help Reid off the couch.  
  
"I've been sleeping on this couch for years," Reid argued, just to prove to himself he could.  
  
"Chair's more comfortable," Langly shot back.  
  
"You're right," Reid agreed, quietly, tonelessly, as if that had been all the argument he could muster. He considered getting up, but Langly's knees were in his way.  
  
Langly realised it a second later and edged out of the space, still offering his hands, relieved when Reid took them and pulled himself up. He watched Reid take the few steps to the chair, slowly, almost as if every step were something new and different from the one before it. It was like watching a man on a tightrope, except there was nothing more exciting than a worn rug between him and the floor.  
  
Reid finally turned and sat, looking dazed, like every thought that went through his head cost him tremendously. He blinked up at Langly, looking for all the world like he was sure he was supposed to say something and had no idea what it was.  
  
At least that was a look Langly knew what to do with. Byers did that, sometimes. "Sleep. You need to sleep. Just lean back and chill. I'll get your shoes off. I'll get the blanket. Trust me. I'm good at this. All you have to do is sleep."  
  
And Reid passed through several states of distrust, confusion, and annoyance, before he realised he did trust Langly, and that he really was much too tired to be thinking. At some point, his head had started to ache -- not the crushing pain he dreaded, but something that cradled the base of his skull and felt like his face would crumble if he leaned on it wrong. Dehydration, maybe. That or exhaustion, and he was so tired.  
  
He spilled backward into the chair, feeling the back of it release as Langly hit the button for it, the vibrations starting under his kidneys first, which he hadn't realised would be a good idea until it was happening. And then he wasn't wearing shoes any more, and he wasn't quite sure how that had happened, but it didn't really matter. What mattered was the fluffy blanket being tucked around him.  
  
What mattered, he realised, was that Langly was still there. That he'd been hopelessly rude and confused, offering only demands and no encouragement, and Langly was still there, still making sure he'd be better, when he woke up. He still wouldn't be good -- that would be asking too much -- but he'd be _better_. Less bad.  
  
He felt Langly's lips against his forehead, heard the words it took a moment to decipher: "I love you."  
  
"Don't." The word felt sharp on his tongue. "I can't. Not now." And then, just as selfish as he'd promised to be, "Stay?"  
  
The blanket moved, and he felt Langly squeeze into the chair next to him, wrap around him.  
  
"Where the hell am I gonna go?" Langly asked, moving up until he could tuck Reid's head under his chin, and pulling the blankets up. "Sleep. There's no monsters here, 'cause I'll kick their asses."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reid's promised he'll be back to normal by Monday, and he's probably right, but Villette still won't be. But, how much trouble can he get into with five half-healed ribs? 
> 
> How long can Mary keep consulting, before she gets into trouble with the hospital? What's going on with the Fitzgerald Institute, now that the number of anomalous staff has sharply increased? Has anyone told the clones? Has anyone told _Whitley_? Has Delia Novak killed anyone, yet?
> 
> All this and so much more, after the traditional December smut break and possibly a kmeme fill!  
>  ~~Be warned: I just bought a house, so updates may slow the fuck down for a while, during renovations and moving. Also, taking the usual week or so off between fics, so I can get the queue restacked.~~


End file.
